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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-14 15:49:55
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hey there! Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening this afternoon, so submit your (BRIEF, I beg!) cases on this thread and we will bring you your due justice.

Not that lowly,

Jake

Comments

Adam H.

Wise elders of the church, Since December I have tarried under terrible guilt. My brother and I bought tickets to your live show in Savannah, and we purchased a third ticket for a friend who ended up backing out. To spread hogliday cheer, we decided to give the third ticket away on the subreddit to anyone who wanted to go. Two people responded immediately. In the spirit of Dice Christ, I told the two responders that I would roll two D20s, one red and one blue, and let the dice decide who got the ticket. I made the roll. And here’s where I messed up: I looked at the profiles of the candidates - one was a guy like me who seemed cool and we shared a lot of interests. The other was a cute girl. Blinded by the fantasy of meeting a cute girl who loves NADDPOD as much as I do, and ignoring the wisdom of Dice Christ, I changed the girl’s dice into what might be the filthiest, dirtiest 20 of my life. The worst part: she never even claimed the ticket, and due to my own wretched horniness, one seat at your fantastic show remained empty. I beg for your guidance - how can I return to the good graces of Dice Christ?

James Brown AKA I LOVE YOU, FUCK YOU, EAT A RAT

The most honorable justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the favorable bailiff, Jake: I humbly bring to The Crit the Case of the Left-Handed Artificer. In a recent one-shot campaign, I played a lvl 4 Battle Smith artificer/lvl 2 wizard named Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. My DM allowed me to use my Steel Defender to create my character’s suit of armor brother, Alfonse. My party was swept away by a modron through the Astral Plane, where my brother was disintegrated. I sacrificed my long rest to bring my Steel Defender back. However, my DM told me my brother’s soul would not remain intact. In the spirit of the anime, I was allowed to bond my brother’s soul back to the Steel Defender after sacrificing my remaining right arm and leg. My DM insisted that because I only had a left arm and leg automail, I only knew how to build left limbs. He allowed me to attach them backwards, making me an all left-limbed PC going into the final battle, essentially turning me into a spinning top of doom. Was it right for my DM to not allow me to tinker opposite limbs based on the limbs my character already had and knew how to replicate? I leave the decision in the capable hands of The Crit.

Fish Harlan

Oh ye Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the damn fine Bailiff (hmu ;)), I present a stolen Brand. I am in a campaign where I play a Warlock/Blood Hunter, and our party was up against a very powerful assassin leader. I attempted to use the Blood Hunter ability Brand of Castigation so we could follow him if he ran. Here's where things get tricky. The assassin leader had a homebrew magical item that allowed him to absorb spells up to a certain level, and the description of Brand of Castigation states that the Brand can be dispelled with Dispel Magic, treated as a spell with a slot level equal to half my Blood Hunter level. Because it says "treated as a spell," the DM ruled that the amulet absorbed it. I argued that it is a spell-like ability, not a spell, and so it shouldn't be absorbed, but I ceded the point because I didn't want to make a big scene, and the DM later granted me a concession to make up for it. Still, I feel like I'm right and spell-like abilities shouldn't be privy to spell-absorbing effects. Am I right, or should I keep looking for other, easier targets for my Brand?

Alec Montemarano

To the Grandiose Judges of the court and the illustrious bailiff. I bring to you the case of unforgivable lightning. I DM a homebrewed weekly D&D game for a close group of friends. We've been playing for over a year now, yet some past issues still remain. Earlier on in our Campaign around session 12, the players were tasked with removing an evil Orcish group and their "king". The party contracted some help from a known Orc killing NPC, who told them he would rampage the settlement. Gronk, a player character, decided he wanted to save his cousin from this attack however their party attacked at the same time as the NPC. Upon failing multiple persuasion checks, he was unable to convince his cousin to trust him. Thus battle ensued, Gronk begging for no one to kill his cousin in and out of game (he even rolled persuasion checks against his own party). Another player, Kerbopulous Looney Lad, aka K-bop, fought the cousin 1v1 outside of the bar that the other players were still inside of combatting foes. K-bop ended up jumping on the cousin and vomited his lightning breath into the cousin killing him. Gronk then walked outside, was told a lie, nat 1'd an insight and was made to believe a random lightning bolt killed his cousin. The player immediately got up, said he quit the campaign and slammed my door on the way out, upsetting my dog. Now for context, this player had no backstory other than his town was ransacked back in the day. Leading up to this session he was really wanting to go to this Orc town. The session before right as we ended he claimed he had a cousin there. We never discussed him having a cousin and I jokingly laughed it off. Then when they infiltrate this town and meet the first person, he instantly claims that is his cousin. I decided to just run with it and then you know most of the rest. The player, then texted me after and said I finally had something to be attached to and you killed it. So I humble myself to your wise judgements. Was I or K-bop in the wrong? Should I have protected this cousin or persuaded otherwise? Or is Gronk in the wrong and should he realize that sometimes people just die? I await your decision.

Jackie

To the effulgent, jocular justices, and the luminous, sagacious bailiff Jaque, I earnestly beg for your assistance. In the first room of a recent dungeon crawl, my party faced a sphinx which, naturally, asked a riddle. If they answered wrong, the entire party would be attacked and since this was a mind palace, there was no way to turn back. One of my players wanted to immediately answer, fully confident in his answer (which was actually correct) while the rest of the party wanted to discuss what the answer might be, fearful that a wrong answer would end in a TPK. The player remained steadfast and refused to tell the party what his answer was going to be. In the end, after a heated and hilarious argument with a lot of exasperated shouting, I ruled that he could give the sphinx his answer and if it was wrong only he would be killed so long as the rest of the party did not intervene, but I wonder if I did the right thing. I await your benign judgement

DMCDawg

The subreddit judges you

Kristina The Sorceress

To the honorable justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and hey to no one else in particular. May it please the court, I present the case of The World’s Saddest Song. For my first ever campaign, I joined my friends mid-campaign. They were level 3 at the time, and they incorporated my rogue character into the world seamlessly and welcomed me into the party. In character, they caught me up to speed on their quest and the BBEG. Not soon after, we encountered an accomplice of the BBEG. This accomplice was a Bard. The rest of the party had encountered this guy before, and took measures to place magical miniature sandbags in their ears to help resist any charms or spells that utilized sound. I, as the player, knew this accomplice and his attack style; however, because he was an accomplice to the BBEG and not the BBEG, he never came up in character. Fearing of metagaming, I did not take any precautions. The DM then had me make a wisdom saving throw. After failing the saving throw, he told me that the song that was played was so sad, it made my character “clinically depressed.” I was told my character felt impending doom and had to be played with a gloomy disposition towards the world, and this magical effect only could be undone by a greater restoration or remove curse. The DM never told me if and what spell it was, or even if it was a legendary action. I no longer play with this DM due to other reasons, but Judges, I ask you, was this penalty too extreme? In addition, even if it was a legendary action of some kind, does it warrant the alteration of my character’s choices and attitudes towards the world? (P.S. We never got high enough level to get greater restoration/remove curse, and we never encountered an npc who had and could use those spells on my character)

Anthony

To the dearest dalingest most beloved justices and the bailiff who's pretty cool I guess; may I present the case of the Perilous Panty Raid. My party was snooping around an evil priest's quarters, which eventually led us to his underwear drawer. We asked if he had anything cute in there, so the DM made us roll for undergarment quality (natural 19), and everybody immediately started squabbling over who got to claim the luxurious lingerie. We decided to settle it with a pillow fight, and the DM improvised a system of "pillow damage" to decide the winner. The battle began, and we gave our all. Luck points were spent, actions were surged, and the wizard even used some portent rolls. In an act of desperation, I decided to put a pillow in my hand and use an Eldritch Blast to launch it at the bard. I rolled, and crit! 21 points of sweet, sweet pillow damage! Or so I thought. The DM ruled that, since Eldritch Blast was a powerful attack even when it didn't crit, it would have exploded the pillow and shot at the bard with lethal intent. I turned red with embarrassment, and she started doing the math. Four measly hit points stood between her and the brink of death. Thankfully, the party thought this was absolutely hilarious, and I immediately burned a 3rd level Cure Wounds to bring her back to full health. My question is, should the DM have let me do pillow damage, or was he justified in sentencing to the rasperry patch?

Ergsauz

To the Honorable Paramores of Justice and Dice Christ (plus their sweet little lover boy) I come before you to confess the sins of a newbie DM. I ran a session with four of my best friends on my 21st birthday. It was only our third session of the campaign as well as their third time ever playing and my third time ever DMing. Their goal for the session was to kill the Hobgoblin leader of a Goblin army that was marching on the city. During the ensuing combat every player was cut down until only the barbarian was left standing. On the Hobgoblin's next turn he rolled a nat 20 to attack which would have surely resulted in a TPK thanks to Martial Advantage. Panicking, I lied and said he rolled a nat 1 instead. The next turn the barbarian was able to get the kill and the whole party survived. Ever since then our group has been plagued with scheduling conflicts and broken friendships until eventually we stopped playing. I ask you this: are we being punished by Dice Christ for my defiance? I just didn't want to ruin my 21st birthday. I humbley await judgment.

Adam Roberts

To the honorable supreme crit justices Axford, Tanner, and Daddy Murph! I come to you not with a wrong doing, but with a problem. I’ve been playing D&D for a pretty long time but haven’t played much recently, the reason being is that I listen to your adventures, and every time I start a new campaign I get bored very quickly. Am I wrong to hold these DMs to the standard of Murph the magnificent?

Michael R

May it please the court, Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner, and also the First-time guest Bailiff Jake Hurwitz I present to you a case of patricide: Last session, my party and I were fleeing a horde of invading Shadowfell monsters by jumping through a portal, which we knew was very unstable and could close at any moment. Despite this, another PC (my actual, real-life little brother) was attempting to haul the unconscious body of his character’s father (a very naughty father who, may I add, was unconscious after we beat him in an encounter where he used a modified “gift of gab” spell to gaslight us). While dragging this dastardly dad, the BBEG appeared, healing the problematic progenitor, who then promptly KO’d another party member along with my brother’s character, and resumed gaslighting us. My turn came, where I was able to heal one player, and then turn to attack the pugnacious poppa with my bow. After rolling a Nat 1, which I re-rolled as a halfling, I rolled a Nat 20. This wasn’t quite enough damage to do it so I rolled my second attack, rolling a second Nat 20. Our DM allows us to deal non-lethal damage, but I felt I couldn’t justify letting my brother’s offensive old man walk away, so I said that I shot an arrow through his forehead, leaving him dead. After our escape, my brother seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t have the chance to reconcile with his deceased daddy, who he had believed (after an Insight check), may have been magically compelled to fight us. Did I do the right thing in putting down this persecuting padre? Or did I rob my actual, real life brother of an opportunity to role play an important moment for his character? I surrender myself to the wisdom and mercy of the Justices.

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I present to you the case of the unrepentant player. While DMing a campaign in college, my real life best friend and most problematic player decided his character (Hektor) would petition a friendly vampire for his assistance in a personal quest. The vampire told Hektor he would not be helping him since it didn’t concern him, and retreated back into his coffin. Hektor’s next words have lived in infamy ever since: “I light his coffin on fire.” I felt very challenged in that moment to initiate combat, but I didn’t want my friend’s character to be killed so I just had his character marked by the vampire to be his new thrall, meaning Hektor could be summoned at any point to serve him. Most lawful court, did I make a mistake by showing leniency after my friend made such a stupid decision? I humbly await your decision.

Jacob A Huber

To the indestructible Supreme Crit Justices and the inedible balliff Jaques, I present the case of the exploding eyeball. I am DMing for a party of close friends. While fighting a group of corrupt constables, my Wizard PC asked if a body part counted as an object. Immediately suspicious, I asked him why he was asking. He told me he wanted to cast enlarge on one of the constable's eyeballs. I'll admit, I was pretty much on my heels at that point so I figured the best thing was for him to roll an Arcana check to see if he could cast the spell in such a precise way. A Nat 20 followed, and I allowed the spell to be cast. Basically, the eyeball exploded. The party escaped in the sizable confusion of the moment, but I still wonder if that was the right call. Can body parts, especially ones as independent as an eyeball, be considered objects? I humbly await your infallible and unflappable judgement. Thanks.

Fey_abyss

To the temptuous Judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the tepid bailiff Jake, I present the case of the Anal Snake Murder. I'm a first time dm, and I try very hard not impede on my players roll play and creativity, and I'm worried I should have stepped in for this. One of my players' characters was possessed by a demon and the rest of the party had been struggling with trying to find a way to save him. After what they thought was a successful exorcism, they learned he was secretly working with the bbeg. Upset, they came up with a crazy plan to see if he was still possessed and potentially put an end to him for good. It was decided the druid would turn into a snake, be put in a sock and shoved up the possessed character's butt while he was passed out drunk to intimidate and potentially kill him if needed. I asked multiple times if they were sure, checked in with the player of said character to make sure he was okay, and made them make multiple difficult checks to see if they could do this. They crit on most of these checks and the druid ended up changing back while still up his butt, exploding out of him and killing him instantly. The possessed characters' player was fine with this, found it extremely funny, but the perpetrators were horrified by what they had done and immediately regretted it. My question to the court is this: was there more I should have done to stop this? I will accept and pass on any judgment deemed necessary.

Maya Soh-Brown

to the most beautiful and stately justices and the admittedly dashing bailiff Jakelope. I run two dnd programs at the library I work at, one for middle schoolers and one for high schoolers. My only qualm with the groups is this: they insist on attempting to romance NPCs. I’ve tried introducing NPCs that are married or otherwise unavailable but they still jest and make comments about how they’re going to marry them. It makes me uncomfortable to think of roleplaying romance with children. My dear court, am I being too harsh on these young minds, or am I justified in being put off? I prostrate myself for your judgment.

Adam H.

I dishonor myself 🙏

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and leave the bailiff feeling satisfied, I present to you a very deadly combo. One time I was playing an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, mainly for the purpose of using the Ancestral Protectors subclass feature. In our first session, my friend who was playing a Cavalier Fighter discovered that their Unwavering Mark feature applies the same effect (disadvantage against everyone other than the PC that applies the mark). He then suggested that we use both of these features against a single enemy, ensuring that they have disadvantage on EVERYONE (ourselves included). Though the Ancestral Protectors feature doesn't use the language of "applying a mark", I tried to argue that though RAW that could work, it definitely shouldn't be allowed RAI. Ultimately, our first-time DM decided to allow it and we cheesed the final fight of the session so bad that we never played in that campaign again. Oh just and impartial court, how do you read and interpret these rules and mechanics? Should we have been allowed to carry out this campaign-killing whomp?

villager72

To the slayest of judges and phantasmagoric bailiff. I bring forth the case of the Total Party Mishap. I ran a murder mystery one-shot a few months back with some friends...yet it still haunts me. There were four players and the idea was they were kids at a summer camp, everyone had their characters and was ready to go. One player I chose to be the killer, we planned for about a month on how it would work and seeing that the other three were level 4 I made him level 9. I use a 5-level formula for big bosses in all my gameplay for party fights, so I know this works (or should). Two of the other players were newer to D&D, but this did not work for the actual session. With a few hints pushing the idea that the killer was amongst them, they still did not pick up on it, even when an NPC mentioned: "the person was about his height" (gesturing to the actual killer). They continued to believe it was the camp nurse who had a single piece of evidence and they went off to find more clues they split up. The killer player had a familiar (all in the rules of their class) and used it to attack one of the players resulting in their death. Then they continued on and one of the other players was killed right when they were about to find more evidence, leaving one person who managed to kill the murderer. After the session, the murderer player and I left our call, but the other players stayed on. My friend on the call later told me what happened, how they were upset by the leveling system, and that they weren't given any clues or warnings. However, there were multiple clues that matched with the character description/whereabouts and what have you. They also were annoyed by the level difference, yet the ultimate plan was a big boss fight, which they failed to get to because of their lack of teamwork. So was I in the wrong for making the boss five levels higher, should I have made the clues stick out more than they were, or were they just clueless? Please help in my hopes of moving past this trauma. -Alex

Aaaaaarushi An Anachronistic Enigma

Dear Bake the Bugly Bailiff, and the Bonourable Budges, My group all moved away and got busy, and we are finally meeting back up this weekend!! Our last game was 4 months ago, and then a year before that. So your judgement is needed. What do i call the character for this oneshot when we meet back up. Im going for distractingly stupid, but just normal enough for it to not derail the session. This is absolutely not what the supreme crit is for, but like, vibes. Happy judgin!

Mason N.

May it please the Grand Court of Crit and fuck you Jake, I played in a 10 person campaign and am playing the party's healer, a Life Domain Cleric named Coach Hawke Barski. As part of his backstory, he was always bullied during school and thus became a coach to put an end to bullying. While the party was sneaking past a group of guards, Hawke Barski noticed a group of teens bullying a kid. He went over to confront the group and ended up getting punched in the nuts and getting table topped by the teens. For flair, the DM put him into a flash back of that exact thing happening to a young Hawke, and in the flashback I retaliated by punching the bully in the face. But in reality, he chose to be doing a 1st level Inflict Wounds uppercut to the teen bully in charge. It immediately killed the teen (who had commoner stats), and as a result, another party member, a Zealot Barbarian, did a reckless attack on me and downed me. Once the tension settled, and I was brought back up, I used all of my money and some of the other PC's money to do a Revivify on the teen. I get razzed about it from time to time, but I need to ask the court, am I in the wrong for playing along with the DM's flashback scenario and getting triggered by the trauma? Or should I have taken the high road and not retaliated? I await the court's decision in shame.

Kade

Wait your artificer with proficiency in smiths tools and tinkers tools only actually has proficiency in left arms? I don't even know what to say

christien

Well this bums me out :(

Georgia

To the esteemed judges, and whatever title befits the bailiff this evening. I have a case of the half-successful-want-to-be weapon thief. I DM a long-running campaign with my younger brother, and we recently invited his girlfriend to join. She's been mostly very fun to play with, but I am realizing they are used to a level of shenanigans that I am not sure I can totally get behind. Overall, the tone of the campaign is fairly light with room for rule of cool and all that, but they are trying to save the planar system, so I also hold that thread of seriousness. The party recently fell into an alternate universe and all got to make AU versions of their characters. My brother's girlfriend made a multiclassed thief rogue and battlemaster fighter. Please note: this build was not discussed with me beforehand. She took the disarming strike maneuver from battlemaster, and the unarmed fighting style. In our first combat, she used disarming strike on the big guy successfully, which was a super cool moment! She then said she wanted to use her bonus action to sleight of hand the crossbow off the guy's back, and I said no. She argued that the thief rogue ability would let her do it, and I agreed it allowed a sleight of hand as a bonus action, but that would be more akin to stealing something in the terrain or sneakily passing an item to another party member, not stealing weapons with no opposed check off an enemy. I told her there are other moves - like the disarming strike - for this very reason. There was some light arguing in which she expressed frustration with the ruling, but ultimately agreed to follow it. So here is what I posit: can a thief rogue steal a weapon off someone mid-combat using a bonus action sleight of hand check? I lay my baddies' weapon's fates in your hands.

Dave Large

May it please the Court! To the truly unpredictable Justices and the stalwart baliff, I present the case of real world time in game. My party and I were playing in a real world setting. We found ourselves in a Walmart to stock up before the mission. We were playing at night and we all split up to find supplies. Our dm made an announcement “Walmart will be closing in 5 minutes.” Thinking this was just cute flavor, we didn’t think anything of it. Fast forward 5 REAL WORLD minutes and he said you are all kicked out of the Walmart and have no supplies. We were being times against an actual Walmarts closing time with zero warning! I humbly ask, should we have been allowed time to stock up or should we have been more aware of Walmarts business hours? I await your ruling!

Rob's Wit

To the Esteemed Judges and Honored Bailiff of the Highest Court of these lands. May it please the court - I submit the following case: the Digital Dice Devil. I make this confession in hopes for absolution by Dice Christ. While DMing a Spelljammer campaign for my three players, the party was attempting to escape a global catastrophe during session one, as the entire planet started to break apart. With two players down, one of them ~digitally~ rolled three 6's in a row, failing their death saves. Hating to see a character go down during session 1, I chimed in saying that spotty wifi might have caused the odd 666 rolls and suggested that they reroll physically. The player's next roll was a natural 20, which I rewarded by bringing the player back up in place of two death saves. Was I right to step in and save this character against the Dice Devil, or have I stepped from Dice Christ's light by not following through with the character's death?

Alex Ferri

For give me dice-sciples, for I have sinned. I play in a campaign at a game store, and we play every Wednesday and only reschedule a session if more than one person can’t make it. My husband surprised me with tickets to see a stand up show which was the same time as my last last session of my campaign. I love my husband, but he forgot I have D&D and I freaked out and panicked. I tried to make a compromise and I went to the first hour of the session but still feel like I let my team down in a really rough fight. Will Dice Christ forgive me? I humbly await my penance. -Alex

Alex W

Praise be to dice christ and their physical manifestations on earth, the justices and highly regarded and respected bailiff. I have a confession for the church, as I have been lying to my players. They are level 8, and are now getting to the BBEG of our campaign. During their first encounter, she crit several times on our fighter, which would have killed him. The whole fight was one they could not win, but I didn’t want to kill them, just give them a taste of what they were up against. So to the fighter, she simply hit. A 17 on one roll, a 15 on another. I beg the forgiveness of Dice Christ for my lying, and hope that trying to save the fighter’s life was a good enough reason to walk from your light.

Fuzzboxx

Hello Beautiful Judges and equally if not more beautiful Bailiff Jake. I present the case of the deadbeat dad. My cousin joined my campaign, he is a dad of a wonderful daughter. He made his character a dad trying to get his kidnapped 6 year old son back. I thought this was a great story and easy to incorporate. I made his son a major part of the campaign (he's tied to the major god in the universe). After over 6 months he finally but casually mentioned his son was kidnapped. The group was shocked he never mentioned it, they considered it a high priority naturally. He said there was more pressing matters. There wasn't. After 6 more months they finally rescued the boy. My cousin immediately tried to pass the kid off to an orphanage, a local magic school, or anywhere (including a the town brothel?), much to the shock of the group. I made the kid a major part of the campaign story so he was meant to travel with the group. My question is was I wrong to assume my cousin would want to be a dad in game since he was in person? Or am I justified to be shocked by my cousins deadbeat dad nature?

Tom A

To the Judges on high and the Bailiff on low, I'd like to make the case of the diplomatic monk. I joined a preestablished group, and was a level or two lower than the others. On this particular quest, we encountered a group of bugbear bandits who stopped us for a "toll". Having no charisma characters, the monk is party diplomat, however he fails to talk his way past the bandits. In steps my character - a high charisma bard. Sensing an opportunity to make a good impression, I try to convince the bandits to let us past. It goes semi-well, and rather than talking them down fully, we get the drop on intiative. Now as I mentioned, I'm lower level than everyone else and I really can't do much in a fight, so just encourage and buff the party. Afterwards however, the monk pulls me aside in game and says "we do don't do things like that here", and says I was useless, and if I don't start dealing more damage he'd kick me from the group! Everyone else stayed quiet, but I believe he felt I was stepping on his diplomatic toes. Bonus info, one other party member was actually a pacifist but didn't get any shit. I left that group soon after, but tell me Judges, was I right to play to my strengths or was I being a spotlight hog?

Nathaniel Rice

If it pleases the magnanimous Judges (and that other guy, jack, John, jimmy) who was a guest on 8bit book club once I think. I present the case of the Mangled PC. We have been running a Tomb of Annihilation campaign for about a year now. Me as DM plus 4 PCs. Since the game is known for lots of player death we went in knowing there would be lots of PC turn over and wanted to make it more interesting. So we had different people make PCs for each other. One player in particular was not a team player at all, in fact letting another PC die when they could have saved them, just to avoid taking any damage themself. So when it came around to my turn to make her PC I wanted to challenge her and make a super helpful wizard who’s spells were built around buffing others. When I gave her the PC after her last had died she asked if she could change a few spells. I was fine with it , figuring It would be one or two. She decided to remove every spell that wasn’t an attack spell and replace it with attack spells. I allowed it, despite it not matching the personality of the PC. When I voiced this to her in game, she decided to have him intentionally die during a fight. This player left the group a while after for other personality reasons. But since then I’ve always been hurt that my Nice PC was mangled into the attack only wizard. My question to you is, should I have pushed back on the changes and insisted she play the character as written. Or was it fine if her to do a 180 since once I gave her the PC it’s hers to do what she likes. I await your judgement.

Jaina Brannan

To the vascular, effervescent, dank justices Axford, Tanner, Murphy, and the Milquetoast bailiff Jordan or whatever, I present the case of the overpowered lich. This happened years ago among a regular group of dnd players thatmet weekly. My friend was DMing an adventure module that had a lich written in the book at one point that lost it's memories. In the book it states that a greater restoration will restore this lich's memories and he may help the adventurers in some way if so. Our party met this lich over the course of the adventure and tried to restore said memories using a pool of lesser restoration that was available in the area. The DM was fairly new to 5e at the time, (so were we as players) and made the mistake of allowing lesser restoration to heal the lich. Then the lich casts time stop and in one turn casts power word kill on one of us, teleports one of our party members miles away, disintegrates another, and ultimately TPKs us before time resumes. This was overall an unpopular move among the players. The DM's reasoning was that you had to be extremely stupid to restore the memories of a lich. Everyone argued and ultimately the decision was made by the DM to resurrect us all as revenants with the unfinished business of killing the BBEG (not the lich). This did not end the campaign but was brought up again and again by one of the players through the end, and afterwards everyone was still so upset that we all agreed there was a summary BAN on this person DMing in our group ever again after this. I felt the least passionately about it, but a few of my friends who were players would bring it up every time we played and would constantly talk about how much they hated the original DM's game. This escalated to the DM's roommate and him ending their friendship and moving out of the same apartment. (note to Murph: I did in fact get new friends due to their behavior.) I ask you, were we too harsh in never allowing our friend to DM in this group? P.S. His defense by the way was simply that he misunderstood the situation as a DM, chose to go a different way than the adventure module with the lich, and that he just simply did not read the time stop spell fully to use it properly. since then I have played more games with him as the DM and loved them, but he never DM'd for that group again.

Contender in the making

To the honorable, infallible and regal judges And the valient, just and decent baliff I bring before you the case of the poor one-shot Me and some friends were prepping a one shot with my roomate DM'ing i dont get to play a lot of dnd so i was very excited to play my bunny boy artificer ,Mortimer. I had told my roommate i was excited about potentially getting a homunculus if our one shot turned into a 2 or 3 shot because i loved eldermourne and it seemed really cool. The one shot went crazy and has now turned into a 4 session mini campaign which is great But when we leveled up my roomate informed me i wouldnt have the GP to make my homunculus and that the campaign wouldnt allow for me to stop and make the money to make one I was disappointed and asked if we could just ignore the cost. Its only a few sessions and not game breaking. My roomate said he was " a rules guy" and stuck to his guns So i ask you is it reasonable to deny the one item he knew i was stoked for Or is it ok to ignore the rules sometimes to make the table happy I humbly await your decision. Mortimer

DrakeDiAngelo

Esteemed crit Justices and the ever lovely (or lowly, depending) Bailiff Jake, if it pleases the court, I write to you about the case of the Genius DM. When I was in 7th-8th grade, my friends and I started playing D&D. We played for several months, but our DM is a huge nerd and a genius, so he memorized all of the core rule books, race and class stats, and most of the items, magical items, and spells. He started giving us more homebrewed things to work with and would let us do shenanigans in roleplay, but would tell us what to do during battles; he was also leveling our characters for us. At one point, he proposed that we do a PVP battle arena, which we were all down with, but he optimized his character so much that we couldn't even get near him without getting hit with a powerful AOE spell. He wasn't overleveled, he just knew what he was doing, so it felt wrong to ask him to dumb down his own character. Eventually, I started making excuses for why I couldn't schedule, and our campaign fizzled out. I'm still friends with him and we both play DnD still, but he still doesn't know why I stopped playing with him. So ask I you, was there anything more I could have done, and was I wrong to have started ghosting him? I still feel really bad about it 5 years later. I humbly await your judicial and divine judgement.

Evan

Wise hierophants of the dodecadiocese. I come to you not with a confessional but to share a miracle of Dice Christ's divine workings. It was the end of our Christmas fun-shot, Santa had been kidnapped by demons the night before Christmas eve, and the heroes were in the Abyss fighting to release him and save Christmas. During the final fight the big bad, a Balor, made two attacks on one of the players, Santa’s dutiful Paladin. I rolled the attacks. First role, a Nat 20, I announce it with dismay to the players. This is super bad for players because a Balor roles critical hits three times instead of two. Second attack, another Nat 20. I paused and seriously considered fudging the roll to some other hit instead of the back to back crits. But I remembered Dice Christ's teachings and announced the second crit, sharing my astonishment and horror with the players, knowing that this damage would outright kill the paladin. As I gather, the massive amount of dice needed to carryout the murder of the paladin, the player looking sadly down at his character sheet sees that he is wearing the Adamantine Armor gifted to him by Santa at our Christmas one-shot last year. The crits are negated! I roll regular damage, which drops the paladin to 2 hit points, who promptly goes next in initiative and crits as well, delivering a battle ending smite to save Santa and Christmas. Trusting in Dice Christ's plan resulted in a truly epic ending to our tale, and I will not doubt his path again.

Fraser Reid

To the honorable, magnanimous justices of the supreme crit, and that charity case of a bailiff they let hang around. As a mastermind rogue in a homebrew campaign I chose the language abyssal at 3rd level. My character was a James bond esque secret service agent and I claimed he was undercover and broke up a demon worshipping ring as reason for knowing it. The DM fought me on it but eventually relented. Fast forward 18 months and many sessions, he asked if anyone knew abyssal to decifer a message left by the BBEG. When I claimed I did he resolutely refused that my rogue would know it over ruling my character sheet and the party never got the info. The party eventually broke up and we now play without said DM and everyone is happy. But to this day I feel robbed and know he just hated my character for his high pitched wonky country irish accent. Was I wronged as I believe? I leave my fate in your hands.

LeCurve52

To the illustrious and handsome Bailiff James, long may he reign, and the wise and impeccably dressed Supreme Crit Justices Tanner and Axford and also Murph, I present to you the case of the Speed Dating Spectator vs the Looney Tunes Library. I am DMing my first campaign that is themed around magical college and runs predominantly on social encounters instead of combat. This tends to require a lot of time and effort on my part homebrewing new and fun mechanics. Our latest session focused on a Speed Dating event that two of my PCs were participating in. I created an entirely new combat system based on self-esteem and romantic interest. It was going really well. One of my other Players, who’s Cleric PC was already in a relationship, decided that he wanted to use all of his resources to assist his party members by casting a bunch of spells to buff them and using his class abilities. I was all for letting him be a part of the encounter, but I didn’t think it would be a fun if they got all these buffs off without any interference, so I ruled in the moment to create random environment hazards (falling books, spilled coffee, runaway book trolleys) that would prompt concentration checks. They all used the basic DC 10, and concentration was never lost, and the other players all thought the hazards were fun and creative. After the session, the Cleric talked to me about the fact that he was upset that I wasn’t letting him do all his things for free, and that he would appreciate it if didn’t “improv screwing him over” in the future. I ask you, in your wisdom, was I in the wrong here to apply challenge to the spectators of this encounter? Or should I have allowed him complete freedom?

Guildedfangs

Baliff Jake, I bring you a case of player vs dm. At the start of the campaign each player was allowed to help shape the world and where their character came from. I played a druid of a nomadic clan from a frozen waste ruled by an Ancient White Dragon who left to gain power to free the land from the Wyrm. My location was the last place we went too and after seeing all the others players locations treated well I find my land no longer a frozen land with nomadic clans but now a bustling city exists in it and is ruled by Silver Dragons. In anger and frustration after asking the DM what had happened and being told he made it better than what we had discussed, I enlisted my best friend who was also a player and we derailed the campaign causing him to make it end much sooner then expected. Was I wrong in going this far after seeing everyone else's location being treated as if it was gold or am I bitter about something that should have been a shoulder shrug? P.S. I do not play with this person anymore.

David Tatarczuk

To the esteemed supreme extreme crit justices and what's his face. I submit to you the opportunity to judge not upon a case that has already happened, but to gaze into your Cate Blanchett reflective pools to judge a case that has yet come to pass. (I assume Emily has brought her own.) The case is ...if, in order to smuggle a character into an area, I had the idea to encase a character's head and or body in essentially a fish bowl/coffin filled with water and cast "water breathing" on them (which lasts 24 hours) and then put them into a bag of holding. Would you rule that this would allow them to breathe longer than if they had just been shoved into a bag of holding or die just the same? I look forward to your ruling on my crazy scheme and potential heist idea.

PaxSum

To the most honorable supreme crit justices and the bailiff I am fully neutral to. I come to you with the case of the nat100. In a pathfinder 1e campaign I was casting the stone shape spell on a large cube of black stone in the middle of a magic research facility when my DM asked me to roll a d100. You can imagine my incredible joy and suprise when I rolled a natural 100, the first and last time ever I rolled a d100 in game. While me and my crew were celebrating this incredible moment my dm stopped us and informed me that I was suddenly transported to the Abyss, alone. Turns out there was a 2% chance of this happening and he had put those 2% at the 99 and 100 instead of the 1 and 2. Was he correct in doing so or was I robbed of the most magical dice moment Ive ever had? I eagerly await your judgement.

James Leese

Argumentative Players. We have a group of 5 players and me and another player take turns DM'ing. During my last term my players went so off the tracks they ended up in Hell based on Nadpods version, instead of the Sunless Citadel following the Tales from the Yawning portal. I love playing with these people but theres one player who just has to argue if anything negative happens to his character. Such as he failed a saving throw on an improvised blood tsunami stating he shouldnt take damage as his back is against a wall. Another example they bought a hell tank which when not moving could extend a giant turret and launch a creature 500ft. They then joined a warband and after a bad introduction to the leader they decided to lure in a demon they thought could not talk. And launch him on fire at the leaders tent. Demons dont take fire damage and he survived on a pure luck check when he hit the tent and was able to telepathicly explain what happened, this lead to a big argument over how they knew who did it. We got through it when I had to lay the law down but do you have any advice on how to deal with this kind of player? Its honestly exhausting.

Heather Sanders

From: Jon P To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, & Tanner, as well as Jaliff Bake, I present to you the Case of Railroading (in more than once way) A few months ago, the girl I had just started dating invited me to join her party for a session. I played a gnome druid named Seebo for what was essentially a Session Zero, and was later asked to join the party. My first official session, the DM asked me how I wanted Seebo to be introduced to the party. I told the DM “whatever works narratively for you”, so he placed Seebo in an NPC’s bedroom and told the party, including my new girlfriend, that my PC was sleeping with the lady of the house, actively cuckolding the husband, & had a 15-inch penis. This was NOT previously decided upon between us, & from then on, it was canonically known my PC was a sexually promiscuous exhibitionist with a massive penis. In the 6 sessions since, the DM has made Seebo flirt or sleep with 4 NPCs. I ask the court, did the DM take away my player agency? Do I have the right to feel upset that the DM gave my PC a massive hog? I humbly await your response, and hope it is not a hung jury. (Note there is a connected Christ Confessional)

Heather Sanders

To the Cardinals of the Holy Dice Christ Church I come to you not with a confession of dice dishonesty, but one of unintentional party trickery. My new boyfriend was joining my D&D party, & I told them they should mess with his PC. One party member suggested she overtly flirt with his PC, then the DM said he had an idea. Later, during the session, the DM said my boyfriend’s PC was sleeping with an NPC, cuckolding the husband, and had a massive penis. He was rather upset on the drive home about the DM railroading his backstory, & to this day does not know I initiated it. I humbly ask for your advice & forgiveness.

Samwell54

dice Christ forgive me for I have freaking messed up, I was still playing a feudal Japan inspired fantasy world called Rokugan. My character was a crab clan barbarian named Mondo and I admit I caused too much trouble for my DM. Every time the DM asked ‘are you sure you want to do this’ I would do it. My crimes include killing key npcs, accidentally revealing our rouge party members plans which he had spent weeks working on, almost revealing the secret identity of another key npc (the dm had to curse my character to never reveal it) , exchanging all my gold for copper pieces, and never ever sleeping in an inn instead opting to sleep outside in the ally. I think the table enjoyed my antics but the DM called me an agent of chaos. Please forgive me

A Mo

To the illustrious bailiff and honorable robed hooligans, I present...The Case of the Dainty Dice. A fellow PC has insisted on using sets of miniature dice at the table. Each die is roughly 40% the normal size and have ruffled my feathers in the following manner: 1. The dice lack a normal heft, and are not nearly as satisfying to chuck. The clack of baby dice rings hollow in my ears. 2. These freaking tiny dice have equally tiny numbers. This requires squinting at a d20 every time it is rolled to see the outcome. Imagine the postponed joy of a nat 20 as you try to determine what the hell you just rolled! Don't even get me started on the d4s.... 3. Finally, these sinful lil dice are an affront to our Lord and savior Dice Christ™. The holy polygonal light has been hidden under a bushel, the word of the lord constrained to a mere millimeter. Who are we to limit the message of this highest power? Let it be known this PC has not one but TWO sets of regular-sized dice, one of which I gifted them. They say that these mini dice "save space", but I call bullhonky. I play with 3-4 sets of regular dice and have NEVER felt claustrophobic at the table. I seek damages for the strain put on my eyeballs, and a prayer for this sinner's soul. May your wisdom bring peace to this troubled table.

Cass DeMarco

May it please the court, it’s honorable and talented judges and the bailiff that’s in a background shot of a very Harold and Kumar Christmas… a couple weeks ago I joined my first dnd game that I’m enjoying a lot. Overall the DMs great and super nice. The one issue I have is that they seem to only take notice of components for spells when the item has to be equal to the worth of a certain amount of gold. We’re only level three and the Druid was trying to cast some spell to summon a beast but the dm wouldn’t allow them to because they didn’t have some special acorn that was equal in value to 200 gp. None of us had that amount of gp. So he couldn’t end up doing the spell yet earlier in the session my wizard was allowed to cast detect magic and some cantrips with no issues. Is the dm being unfair or am I just a newbie reading too much into this Thanks!

Mad Dungeon Mama

To the Juicy Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and Bland Balif Jake, I present to you a case of Critical Pain. In an online West Marches style discord server I am on, several of the DM's implement "brutal critical". When a player rolls a Nat 20, full damage is dealt to the enemy, PLUS their roll. It's lovely! *However!* When a Nat 1 is rolled, or a player is crit upon by an enemy, the DM's will allow full damage + roll, AND roll on the dreaded crit table, often resulting in lost limbs, eyes, ears, and other various incapacitating and character life altering effects. Most of these injuries can only be remedied via the Greater Restoration or Regenerate spells, which are 5th and 7th level spells respectively. Only 2 DM RUN CHARACTERS (not npc's) can cast these spells and the world is huge, so finding them is time consuming and a plain to role play out. I ask you, should the crit table be allowed? Or should the power hungry DM's put them aside and just let Dice Christ and imagination be enough? I humbly await your verdict.

Nathan Perez

On this lovely Valentine's Day, I beseech the beautiful "Bae"-liff Jake and the three Juicy Justices for judgement. I'm currently DMing a campaign where my party encountered the Kuo-Toa: a bunch of crazy fish people who can will their own gods into existence with their fanaticism. The fish people succeeded in summoning their god "Blibdoolpoolp", a giant naked lady with a lobster head and claws. One of her abilities as a lair action was to cast Phantasmal Force, which I flavored as lusty crab aunts pinching the rears of those who failed. One of my players was confused and thought that since they were in an illusion with these degenerate crustaceans, they could not see anything else and just rolled to see if they could escape from the illusion, which they failed multiple times. The battle continued for more rounds until the end, when they escaped and gave the finishing blow, but they were frustrated since they thought they were stuck for multiple rounds. It seems that I had forgotten to mention they could see everything else while under Phantasmal Force and explained it to them. I was met with a very embarrassed "Oh". Was I at fault for not clarifying the situation, or was my player too distracted by rear-pinching pincer people to properly play?

Resteasy

Good morning to our beloved east coast bailiff and a cold greeting to the authoritarian west coast judges on their high horses made from the bones of the once happy players. I had been playing with a group of seven for a little over a year and our dm had what seemed like a fleshed out world however with no story in mind. It seemed like we spent most of our sessions traveling back and forth between the same two towns completing quest for a heroes guild. These quest amounted to clear the bandits from this forrest or clear the rats from this warehouse. Every time we met an interesting character the story threads would go nowhere no matter how much we pulled on them. It came to a head for me when my character decided to not take on the next hero mission (clearing a field of giant dog ticks out for a farmer whose cows were being sucked dry). I instead broke into the local library ( I played a sorcerer whose profession was a conman) to try and look up information on a den of ancient red dragons we had heard rumors of. Instead of yes anding my choice i was caught by “library security” (in a literally invisible cage) and told I would need to either spend one year in prison or pay a 1000 gold fine within a month. This was in a game where we would earn 20 gold a session completing the hero’s guild side quest. Was I wrong in wanting to spend 4 hours a week working towards something narratively satisfying and not just gritting my teeth and enjoying the company of friends

AToddNamedDick

For the honorable judges and deplorable bailiff, i present the case of the Extended Eldritch Blast Blunder. My group, mostly melee weapon welding folks, and I, a warlock, were making our way through a corrupted jungle to find a lich performing the large ritual he'd been working to complete over the course of the campaign. We had come about 600 feet from the sight, where we saw that the ritual was underway and we only had a few minutes until his plan was complete. My few melee friends began heading that way, weapons drawn ready for battle. While they approached, I began Eldritch blasting (longer range than EB can be used normally, but I took an invocation and feat to increase the range to a comical level). However, instead of being a distraction and a method to potentially break his concentration, it instead attracted the liches attention that we were there. He then sped up his final aspect of the ritual, completing it, making the following fight much harder and having some rough consequences for the rest of the world. Afterwords, the party agreed that the entire situation would've been avoided by not Eldritch blasting so soon and alerting the lich, while I defended myself by saying it's weird that a lich was being lazy in his ritual casting and we had no way of knowing he could just "make the magic go faster." I leave my fate with you all, did Dave the warlock jump the gun or was suppressing fire truly the way to go?

King Wonderbread

May it please the court, as well as the baffleff Yake. My party experienced 45 years of involuntary time travel when our magical teleporting tower was poked by an extra planar rapscallion who we may have let out of a mana well. While we took this in stride, it has been months now, and we have an unforseen problem that finally caught up to us. A PC who is no longer playing with us opened a bank account in a society we're vehemently opposed to (Humans amirite?) before we went forward in time. We just got a sending spell from the bank saying we owe them 54,843,706 gold and 1 copper and this is our final and only notice. The PC's character has been reincarnated at least twice now as part of an ongoing story hook, but is currently a camel on the other side of the map. The camel owes 54 million gold and not Us, clearly. Justices, I humbly ask that you make a ruling that our party may try to use against the human bankers and the DM, lest we end us up in water so hot it belongs inside a desert dwelling packiderm's hump.

Travis Perkins

Dearest Crit Justices and the honourable bailiff, I present to you the case of the PC who should have died. I am the DM running a modified version of Rime of the Frostmaiden. As part of the module, my party found themselves looting a beached ship full of a Ancient White Dragons horde. While nelting the ice surrounding the loot, the dragon, ancient and partially blind due to cataracts, returned to the ship. The party had ample warning due to high rolls and managed to leave the scene before the dragon noticed them. Thinking that the session was over, we began packing up. The rogue suddenly said that her character (male changeling rogue) was going to sneak back to the ship. Due to partial blindness, the dragon rolls perception (+13) with disadvantage. Now, our rogue is not Min-maxed. In fact, they only have a +1 to dex, so a +3 total to stealth. I made her make 3 opposed stealth checks. She somehow passed all 3. Then she passed her wisdom save to avoid dragon fear. She gets up on the ship, within 10 feet of the ANCIENT WHITE DRAGON (chaotic evil) and says that she wants to climb on its back and ride it back to its main lair. Of course the dragon notices and confronts her. She claims that she's the grandchild of the Dragons dead rider, who is still tied to her back after decades. To avoid instant death (the Dragons breath weapon would do 3x her hit point Max on average, I narrated that the dragon was so confused by this narrative that she let her go. Dearest judges, was I wrong to not punish my player by having her instantly perish? I know what I should have done is ended the session there and picked up next time. Feel free to punish either of us, knowing we will both be there at your Perth show.

Grace Atkins

Honorable, Fantastical, knowledgeable judges, and the lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, bailiff, I bring you the case of the biclopsicorn. I DM for a group that likes to razz me. They find something that they know that flusters me and pick at it to get me in a tizzy. I know it's all good fun so I am not really mad about it, but I did feel the need to exact my revenge. In my last campaign I ran, there were tons of hints that the BBEG was a vampire, however for some reason my group decided they wanted it to be a biclopsicorn (horse with 1 eye 2 horns). They joked and joked and joked about this for months so in the final session after they defeated the BBEG vampire, I had the God of Evil and Chaos in the world appear in the form of a biclopsicorn and TPK them. My group was fine with the outcome cause it was the final session, and we laugh about it to this day, but I am wondering if I was too harsh over a simple gag? I await your fair judgment

Duncan Longtrunks

To the honorable Justices and wise Bailiff, I present part 1 of tales from the toxic table. I was playing my first campaign ever with a group that were all fairly new. The DM had created homebrew spells from his favorite video games that were introduced into his world. The only problem is that only his NPCs and monsters could use them along with only one of our players (the wizard). These homebrew spells essentially made all RAW spells obsolete. I was playing a bard/rogue and went to counter one of these homebrew spells. I was told that I couldn’t counter the homebrew spell because I don’t know the magic. The problem was the spell I was attempting to counter was a homebrew spell that instantly destroyed magic items, so my oathbow was instantly turned to dust, no save was even given. He argued he gave me the oathbow so it was within his right to take it away. Was my DM correct is stealing my item with a spell I couldn’t use or counter?

Philipp Buir

To the most illustrious, radiating and overall spectacular justices and to the bailiff, who also needs to be here I guess, I present the case of the premature power gamer. I recently joined the campaign of a friend of mine, who wanted to run an all people-of-the-faith campaign. Normally I’m not into minmaxing, but the other players are very new to D&D and so there were a few “mistakes” in character creation, I couldn’t ignore. We use dndbeyond and I’m the host so I can share my content, which allows me to look at and change the stats of the other party members. I moved some numbers around and changed our paladin’s STR score from an 11 to a 14, so that his hits would actually land in combat. Was I wrong in wanting our party to be as powerful as possible or should I get in line with all the sweaty powergamers that lurk in the dark corners of this hobby? I humbly await your judgement.

Dan Healey

To the honorable judges, and the wonderful new part time Boston Justice, Bailiff Jake. The case of the Big Baby DM! If it pleases the court, During Quarantine, my monthly game moved online and DM decided to make a new campaign with new characters (I was a halfling blood hunter named Jeff). The setting was a massive war campaign but was supposed to be a laid back game. During the 3rd session, we were aboard a ship when our friendly NPC crew started to become hostile, our DM narrated that they were all leering at us and then while we were all eating, they all drew their weapons to attack. The rogue and bard used persuasion and some intimidation checks to try to diffuse but even though one rolled a nat 20, the DM said they failed and asked us to roll Initiative. The Wizard went first and cast sleep at 3rd level to put some of them down, but immediately, the DM said it had no effect. It was at that point that the bard had this exchange with the DM, who we have been friends with for over 20 years, ( Feel free to act it out!!!) Bard- So there is nothing we can do? DM- I dont know. Bard- No, im asking, is there anything we can do to not have to fight them? It doesnt make sense. DM- Are you making an attack or what? Bard- Screw it, if they want a fight, let's kill them! DM- What! Did you say this in chat or in game? Bard- in game, im rolling to attack... DM- No! You're not playing right! That's metagaming! FUCK THIS, I QUIT! He signed off discord and then deleted our campaign on DND Beyond. The next day, the DM called the Wizard and said he worked so hard on this story and we weren't taking it seriously. He claimed we weren't suppose to fight and there was ONE detail we all missed that would have fixed everything but no one saw it. He also admitted he didnt know how Sleep worked. He then blamed the Bard for everything and called the rest of us campaigning for him to be tossed. We sided with the Bard and the campaign never started up again. Were we right to take the bard's side and not try to compromise for another campaign? PS, that was almost 3 years ago and our friend ,the DM, has been MIA since. I hope the crew of the SS Big Baby was worth 2 decades of friendship.

Ian

Hey you 3 & rake. Dm bad, me good or me bad, dm good? Thanks.

ChefJustinLane

An Exaltation of Dice Christ, Brothers and sisters in Dice Christ, a miracle hath occurred. I was at both Georgia live shows recently (I was the guy in Savannah playing the lute for our epic One Big Bed singalong). At the Atlanta show, I caught Murph’s D20–the D20 he couldn’t hit the broadside of the grandma tree with--and rightfully sentenced it to immediate jail-time for letting Murph get absolutely womped. Fast forward to our Critmas one shot: I can’t roll above a 10 to save my life, so in a fit of desperation I retrieve the Murph die from its prison. The first roll on the die? A natural 20. I crit on the BBEG and in an ode to Calliope I threw in a defensive flourish and my highest level smite for 92 points of damage. Two turns later, the BBEG was gone and we rescued the mall from a raging rpg wielding Santa Claus. I see this as a proud reminder to my other underperforming dice that with due penance, they too can stop rolling like hot garbage. Dice Christ Bless Us, Every One. Yours in Dice Christ, Justin M (TheBrunch Guild)

Orangeleader398

To the honorable supreme crit justicesand Jake. One day my friends and I were playing a one shot and I was a halfling sorcerer named Ptoughneigh (Tony). We were trapped in a cell and forced to fight in an arena through a variety of creatures. During a fight a casted a 2nd lvl Flame blade to fight in close combat. I rolled a NAT one and the DM said I missed my attack and hit the wall taking damage and my blade went away. (I had forgotten I was a halfling, was semi new to D&D) I argued I should make a concentration check and that it was my only 2nd level spell at our lvl. Was I wronged for not getting a concentration check?

Samson

To the Esteemed judges and the honourable Baliff James, I present the case of the disappointing mother. I'm currently playing in a game set in ancient Rome, which has been going on for about 2 years. I play an Orcish bard named Hogarth, who loves poetry and song, much to the disappointment of his family. In my Backstory, I wrote Hogarths father to be missing, presumed dead, and his mother to be this incredibly tough, stoic soldier who thought Hogarth was wrong for liking poetry. Our campaign lead us to meeting her, and all through the build up, hogarth kept warning the other party members about her : 'she's not much of a talker', 'she can be a little blunt', 'she might be pretty pissed at me', that sort of thing thing. However, when we met her, my DM played her to be a very stereotypical mother - cooking and cleaning, asking hogarth if he was getting married yet, gossiping and such. I dunno, I just felt deflated and I guess my DM noticed and got upset with me for being 'into the roleplay' enough. He said it's not my world, NPCs won't always act how I want them to. Am I in the wrong for wanting my DM to play his NPC how I wanted, or should I suck it up as its his world? I await your judgement, thank you.

Audrey Pottsmouth (Red)

To the honorably swole and incredibly be-bearded Jake and his three friends I guess, I am perplexed with quite a dilemma. I was running a "test" 5e campaign for some friends, based off of Avatar: The Last Airbender, for about about half a year. It was a "test" because I had originally planned to run it for a different group of friends, but since that group consists of several D&D veterans (several of which have been my DMs for various games), I wanted to make sure the campaign was fleshed out enough for them to thoroughly enjoy. Here's my problem: I only got through one arc of the campaign before the test group ran into scheduling issues preventing us from playing. They're really enjoying the campaign and their characters, and would like to continue playing, but some of the players aren't getting back to me / aren't able to play as their schedules don't line up. I'm conflicted: Do I call the campaign and end it prematurely, possibly running a lackluster game for my friends and definitely having to rewrite some story arcs, OR do I work to get everyone's schedules back on board, knowing that there's a good chance at least two players won't be able to continue? I've put a lot of work into the test game, but I don't want to put more in if this is going to end up being a Sysyphean (sih-SIF-ee-an)Task. Honorable and always, Bent between a Rock and a Hard place

vinicius fernandes

To the very real and totally not fake judges Axford, Tanner, and Murphy and to the AI generated bailiff Jake.exe, I bring you the case of the contested kill stealing. My party likes to keep track of who gets the most kills in my campaign with the paladin having over 200 kills and the cleric having less than 20. My party was in the Feywild fighting a hag made out of a hundred hands and a blighted unicorn. During the fight, the cleric surrounded the hag with a wall of fire. When it became the paladin's turn, he decided to pick up the nearly dead unicorn and chuck it at the hag. I allowed it as an improvised weapon. Since he chucked it 30 feet at the hag, I ruled that it would be similar to fall damage, so 310 bludgeoning damage for each of them. This did not kill the unicorn, but it did fall in the fire from the wall of fire. At the start of the unicorn's turn, it took the fire damage and perished. The paladin argued that it should've been his kill since he placed it there, but I gave the kill to the cleric because he caused the wall of fire to appear. The paladin now claims that his kill was stolen. Was I wrong to give the kill to the cleric instead of to the paladin? I await your wisdom.

Noel Raley

May it please the court and fall indifferently upon the ears of the one time guest of 8 Bit Book Club, Josh: The case of the accident rules stickler One of the first times I DM'd, my party was about to set off on a 5 year mission to discover the source of rising sea levels slowly turning the world into Waterworld/Wind Waker dystopia. Crowds were gathered to see them off, and the level 2 Druid asked if he could turn into a dolphin and swim alongside the boat. Without knowing that Druids cannot wild shape into a creature with a swimming speed at level 2, for some reason I decided they couldn't. But they were very insistent so I asked them to roll a luck check. They failed, and I narrated that their bottom half turned into a dolphin's tail and they flopped around on the deck of the ship. The player still brings this up regularly years later and calls me an asshole, to which I point out the rules for wild shape. My question is, am I the asshole for denying the player a harmless flavorful wild shape, or am I posthumously vindicated by the rules I didn't know at the time?

Jess D.

To the honorable and always right supreme crit justices and the mostly wrong bailiff: I come to you with the question of - when does committing to a character flaw become a problem? I recently started a game with people found online, and during our third session we got into a pretty nasty combat. Our rogue took a lot of damage, and after the fight asked my character, an artificer paladin multiclass, if she could heal her. I said I could with my lay hands pool, to which she responded “oh no none of that divine shit I can’t have that, can you use artificer stuff to heal me?” I said no, as I didn’t have any other type of healing, but that even though lay on hands is a paladin thing it wasn’t necessarily divine. I suggested asking our party Druid if she could heal her, to which this person responded, “no, I want you to. Go ahead with the divine shit.” So I used all 10 of my lay hands healing on her, the only healing I had for the whole day, and after using it she goes “so because it’s divine I actually take ten damage from that so now I’m only at 4hp.” I went to again, out of character, say it’s not necessarily divine to which she responded “it doesn’t matter this is a character choice I’m making,” and then started in character complaining about me hurting her. I was so stunned I didn’t say anything - while I’m all for making strong character choices, she wasted my healing and forced me to hurt her. It felt worse because we had a Druid who could have used healing word that she refused to ask! I ask you - am I right to be upset by this, or is this a character decision that is fine to not tell your party about ahead of time?

Slyfox

To the illustrious Supreme Crit Justices and the bailiff who’s there too I guess, I come to you representing the DM in the case of Exhausted DM vs the 3-peat player. My girlfriend recently took over DMing for our home game. After the first session, our former DM wanted to kill off his character because he had to use a bonus action to reload his overpowered gun. My girlfriend gave the character a heroic death, and we met his next character, an Irish wizard. Two sessions later, after his new character had been given a plot hook relating to her backstory, he said he wanted to change again because he didn’t like speaking in her accent and refused to change it, stating it was an important part of her character. We are now on our sixth session and his third character, so my girlfriend told him he cannot switch again because she’s tired of rewriting material to fit his characters. Is she wrong for doing this, or should she allow him to change again if he doesn’t like playing this character?

Carlos Castro

Dearly beloved justices and Bailiff John too,

lilac

To the Jovial Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and Bailiff Bob Odenkirk; May it please the court. I present the case of the Hearing Impaired Elf; I aM playing in a 5e campaign with my friends and I have had a…reoccurring problem. My DM likes to play NPCs who whisper and or mumble. This would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that I am hearing impaired. I was frequently having to ask the DM to repeat themselves, but they were noticeably annoyed every time I asked. I can understand how having to repeat yourself could break immersion, so I started having my fellow PCs give me a recap of what the DM said after he spoke in these voices so I could stay in the loop. This was apparently the wrong choice. After I did this a few times, the DM stopped mid-speech to ask why we were continually talking while he was narrating. He knows I am hearing impaired and when I explained the situation he said that “if I couldn’t hear him then my character couldn’t either.” I play an elven rogue who frequently stealths around to overhear conversations. I argued that just because I am hearing impaired in real life doesn’t mean my character is. I personally want my fantasy characters to be an escape from reality, not a reminder of it. So I ask, am I wrong for wanting my character to be able to hear things that I the player can’t? Or should I have found a better way to handle this situation? I humbly await your verdict and accept whatever punishment I may or may not receive. P.S. I did end up leaving this campaign because I felt like the vibe wasn’t a good match for me. Apparently after I left, everyone else did too and the campaign fell apart. I’m worried it was my fault. Anyway, Best, Lilac.

Andy C

To the honourable Justices and to the special guest bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of the Unstoppable End Game. After one of our sessions our DM had asked us to make level 20 character sheets. The next session the magic of the world was out of control and we faced a giant monstrosity attacking the town we lived in, which we then defeated. However we were told that the world was still shattering and that we were starting a new campaign 200 years later in this now shattered world. We were a little perplexed as we have been playing this campaign for over a year and have liked these characters. The DM has said that because we didn't help this one NPC the world is now ending. Should we have been able to try and stop this fate or should our characters have died due to our negligence?

The CPawx Centre for People Who Can't D&D Good and Who Wanna Learn to do Other TTRPG Stuff Good Too

To the highest of Supreme Crit Judges, and the not-so-lowly Jake: I present to you, the case of the Improvised Leash. Most of the campaigns I play in consist of improvisers, which leads to a lot of funny story and roleplay moments. In one such case, our party was trying to infiltrate an enemy base by entering through the roof. For fun, my character, Mat, asked another character, Flip, "what do you see, boy?" Flip then pretended to be a dog, panting and pointing. To enhance the bit, we joked that Mat tied a rope around his neck as a leash and had a little sequence of Flip darting around sniffing things. WELL! In all that sniffing, the roof collapsed, Flip failed a DEX save and plunged through the hole, Mat failed an INT save and held on tight to the rope, and Flip was hoisted by his own petard. Which is to say, the DM ruled he had effectively been "hanged" and he died. While we argued that a gag shouldn't affect the actual gameplay, the DM stuck by the decision, and we moved on. The campaign ended shortly after. I ask you, honourable judges - are we the players to blame for improvising for humour instead of narrative, or is the DM at fault for "yes, and"ing too much? Thank you for your swift, yet fair, judgement.

AdversityHire

To the fine judges of the crit and even the lowliest of bailiffs, I prostrate myself before you, for you see, I am guilty of coordinating and executing a hit on a d&d campaign. I started playing d&d with a group of friends I've known for nearly 15 years now. We're all long-time roleplayers, but this was our first d&d campaign, so we're flexible with the rules and focus more on storytelling and hijinks. A newer friend of mine, let's call him Cheswick, had always wanted to play a campaign, so we invited him to join a couple sessions in. For a bunch of reasons I won't bore you with, he eventually took over as DM of the party. He seemed promising at first, but things quickly went south. The whole group is pretty relaxed and willing to go along with some "railroading" for story purposes, but when we went along with what we thought was a wink from the DM and get bad results, Cheswick would, out of character, tell us the decisions had been ours all along, much to everyone's annoyance. In other instances, he would have his bumbling DM PC intentionally ruin clever plans the players had come up with. This was annoying, but generally tolerable, until I found out that Cheswick, irl, had confessed feelings for one of the players and was showing up at her apartment, making her DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE despite her multiple rejections. That was way over the line for me.. Because I was the one who invited Cheswick to join us, I felt it was my responsibility to put things to right. I messaged the other players and told them to be "vaguely unavailable" on our usual game day, and they accepted without explanation. After a few weeks of this, I shut down our discord server and told my friend that he was bothering to block him everywhere. While I admit I murdered our campaign, I ask the judges: was this a justified mercy killing? Or should I have found a solution other than going completely nuclear? I put myself at the mercy of the crit

Dani D

I just want to hear Murph groan at these PC names

DrakeDiAngelo

Why on earth did your DM not call for a perception or Insight check when the Bard asked if there was anything you could do 😭

Cats

To the prestigious justices and he who shalt not be named balif. I offer to you the case of the Stolen Pack of Cigarettes. Years ago our friend offered to DM a game for us. He's a great story teller but only dabbled in DMing. The starting setting was on a boat in a river like in the Amazon or a bayou. My bf, myself AND the DM created our PC's. My BFF played.. basically Tom from Tom and Jerry when he wore that zuit suit. He wanted to do cartoonist things. At one point he attempted to pickpocket the bad guy boss of the boat by stealing a full pack of cigarettes from his front coat pocket. He rolled a natural 20! Instead of getting the whole pack, however, the DM said he only grabbed 1 cigarette out of whole pack because it didn't make sense to be able to steal a whole pack from, quite literally, under his nose. I ask, is a natural 20 worth the whole pack, or does it make sense that someone couldn't pickpocket out of your breast pocket without notice?

ali

To the most Honorable justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford and to the supreme bailiff Jonk, I humbly request your input on the case of the Thri-Kreen circle of the shepherd druid and their telepathic speech ability. We are currently playing a waterdeep, dungeon of the mad mage campaign with Brutal realism *( i.e short rests take 8 hours and you only get a long rest if you spend a 10day outside of adventuring). When this campaign started Thri-kreen race was still a UA but is now in the spell jammer book. Their ability states they cannot speak any other language out loud besides their Thri-kreen language however they can telepathically communicate with any willing creature within 120ft as long as they speak a language. This has been helpful in the dungeon keeping us silent as we sneak, making my Character Elbee basically a switchboard, relaying messages and instructions into her groups mind so no one has to speak out loud. In the beginning when wild shaped my DM let her telepathically communicate but has since changed his mind stating she wouldn’t be able to use that telepathic ability while in the form of beast. I disagreed stating she has an innate ability to telepathically communicate and with her being a shepherd druid she is also able to communicate and be understood by beast, regardless of their ability to understand language. My biggest issue is this being brutal realism I only get wild shapes back after a 8hr rest which makes me loath to drop the form early. This is causing issues with group communication since I cannot give my input on decisions in the dungeon while wild shaped. I respect my DM’s as we have all been playing together for 10 years and friends for 15, and we all also DM our own campaigns for each other. I as a DM would have let the druid keep telepathically communicating when wild shaped but we all have our own styles so I am curious as to what the high and honorable court Justices and DM’s would rule. Your honors I am willing to take any punishment given, please please razz me to your hearts content, yours humbly – Ali, lover of druids and the weirder playable races

Noel H

Dearest, most munificent court justices and the soon-to-be Dadliff, I bring to the attention of the court, perhaps a transgression(?) of mine as a fledgling DM that guilts me to this day. A few years ago I ran a one-shot as a first time DM. I was very proud of the prep and couldn't wait to play with my players. However when it came time to play, two of the five players on the table were simply not engaged by the game, despite my best efforts to include them. At one point, they disregarded any attempts to constructively progress the game and simply rolled Animal Handling checks to make the nearby deer copulate with one another (in which they crit). Fast forward to the big boss fight at the end, and one of them managed to crit and dropped my BBEG to 0 HP within two rounds (poor balancing on my part). This is where I must admit my wrongdoing: instead of letting them win and end the session then and there, I did NOT tell them that the BBEG was mechanically dead and instead kept the fight going until another player landed a hit since I, in my exasperation, did not want to give the satisfaction of victory to players who were unengaged the whole session. Yes, I disrespected the sacred roll of the dice, but I must ask the humble opinion of the court: On a scale of 1-10, how much of an asshole move was it to fudge the die? Yours foreverly, Noel

Nicole Jordan

To my pious preachers and the little alter boy, Jake. I come with a Dice Christ confession. Thanks to NADDPOD and D20, I have fallen in love with D&D. I have always wanted to play, but have no friends that are even remotely interested, so I just consume as much actual play as I can find. However, last week I decided to bite the bullet and attend my college’s RPG club. The people seemed nice enough and after the DMs pitched their games they had us role initiative as a fun way to determine the order in which the newbies would pick the game they joined. I rolled and got a nat 20. With such a roll, I had a beautiful buffet of choices laid in front of me and a crowd waiting with baited breath for my decision, I awkwardly approached the whiteboard and signed up for the game that most interested me. However, that night my social anxiety got the best of me and I promptly texted the DM to back out, apologizing and letting him know I was too busy to play this semester. Please forgive me for ignoring such an obvious sign from Dice Christ. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to jump in and hopefully by then Dice Christ will welcome me back with open arms.

Noah Sinclair

To the crispest of Justices and the soggy bailiff Jumph, I bring forth the case of the unconventional spellcaster. At the beginning of our current campaign, our party found ourselves chasing after a killer robot that had been terrorizing our town. This thing was severely overpowered, and had killed my previous PC (a level 3 Eldritch Knight) in one blow when it caught us off guard in the first session. Now, with my new character (a level 3 Hexblade Warlock) and our College of Lore Bard, we aimed to take this thing by surprise and hinder its ability to cast spells via hex and bestow curse. We cycled through the main three, INT, WIS, and CHR, but none of them had an effect, and we became frustrated. After taking our DM to the razz-berry patch on how magic works, he informed us that he did not make a mistake but the robot was in-fact a Constitution spellcaster. It was at this point that we as players began to riot, but the battle was already lost, and our PCs had to retreat for fear of more death. Judges, I ask you, is it possible to cast spells via sheer force of will, or were we players right to have our real-life constitution sickened due to this unique magical ability? I rest our party's fate in your hands.

Nick Yorio

In the name of the dice devil, the nat 1, and the holy crit, it has been my entire life since my last confession. I am a DM for a group of 6 players, and for whatever reason I roll extremely well against them. I’m talking straight savage rolls that would level even the mightiest barbarian in a few hits. In the interest of having a fun campaign where I don’t TPK the party every session I have been fudging my rolls for the better part of a year. I’ve never done so to benefit myself, but rather to pull my punches and let my PCs feel like they have earned a victory, even though in my heart I know the truth. My players are having a blast but I know that I am sinning, should I resign myself to the will of dice Christ and murder my party or continue to lie in the pursuit of everyone having a good time?

JessMayWin

May it please the court and the criminally underrated bailiff- I present the case of the thwarted toilet ambush. In a game a few years ago we were tasked with kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy merchant to get information about the location of a valuable artifact - the only problem was, according to the DM, 'she never leaves her mansion and has at least 2 guards with her at all times and if they are alerted the entire guard force will imprison and kill you'. We spent over 2 sessions trying to solve this issue in a variety of ways, which the DM continued to shoot down (can we infiltrate the merchant's militia and try and get on her guard shift? No. Can we pose as merchants and try to get an audience with her? No. Start a fire at her estate to smoke her out? You get the idea). In desperation I suggested that our bard polymorph into a fly and try to sneak through a crack in the window while she was on the loo and then dimension door out of the mansion, as I reasoned that surely she would have to be alone while doing her business. The DM flat out refused, saying the guards would also accompany her to the toilet. The whole thing left us feeling pretty.... crap.... to be honest. I humbly ask the court - would someone being guarded at all times expect their guards to be with them when they are on the can, or was my idea, as gross as it was, a viable one? How do you navigate a DM who clearly has a specific idea for how a problem should be solved? p.s. after this same in game day continued with no further success for another session I took Murph's advice and found a different group to play with!

FoundewEgg

To the clean faced judges and the bountiful bearded bailiff, I present the case of The Boat Tax. My group recently started a new campaign as Ratmen delivering a deck of many things, I decided to pull a card and to my delight I got the gem card, I managed to obtain a hoard of gems worth of 50000 gp, later on in the story I decided to test my luck and draw another card, what I got was the boat card, I was excited to get a boat to sail with my riches but before I could fully enjoy my victory the Dm told me that the services to take care of the boat cost all my money taking all of my gems, I told him that the gems are liquid assets and not yet money, he took them anyways. was I wronged for him taking all of my gems or was it a valid play. I await your judgment.

Alita Angel

To the most honorable and tantalizing supreme crit justices and to the pretty okay bailiff Jim. I come to you with the case of the murdered animal companion and a very unsatisfying replacement. I played in a campaign with my roommate as the dm, my partner as the Goliath barbarian Twisted limb, me as the tiefling hard Gvenja, a work friend as the wood elf Druid Zizlat, and his girlfriend as a paladin aasimar who’s name escapes me. We were pretty low level at the time but our dm was under the impression that Ziz had the summon familiar spell already so in order to up the stakes to the battle we were in at the time he killed his familiar which was a super cool hard working wolf who was the Goodest boy. When Ziz’s familiar was killed there was a very clear mood shift that came from him and out of character he expressed how he wouldn’t be able to bring him back due to the lack of proper spells to do so to which our dm was very apologetic. Our next session the dm had home brewed a spectral wolf that Ziz could summon with a cloak to make up for the death of his good boy and Ziz looked unimpressed but thankful. It’s been years since this happened but it still get brought up years later as one of Ziz’s biggest disappointments playing the game. Is Ziz overreacting over an honest mistake or should our dm have done more reading into our character levels before killing off a beloved animal and giving him a lack luster replacement? I await your judgement.

PineappleLiar

To the high chair bound judges, and the bailiff consigned to the squalor on the floor, I present to thee the case of the Giant Meat Cube. I play a Creation Bard, where one of the main subclass features of this bard is being able to create any temporary non magical object, so long as it fits within a certain space and costs less than a certain gold value. Now, after a fight with a giant displacer beast terrorizing a nearby town, our druid finds it’s pup left orphaned in it’s cave. Said druid decides to adopt the little guy, and begins the arduous process of taming a monstrous creature. As I want to help in this, I offer to use my bard ability to create a 5 foot cube of meat for the baby displacer to eat. Our DM, however, said no, and that the time limit on how long the creation objects last would kick in before any nutritional value could be gained from the meat. I argued that the meat would have already entered a different state by the time it would have dissolved, and pointed out that there’s a whole can of worms that gets opened if the creation object still disappears even after going through some chemical reaction (a benign material turning into a deadly poison if one molecule gets removed, for example). Eventually the DM won, and I just ordered a subscription meat box for the druid, but who was in the right here? I humbly await your response.

Arlo

May it tug the heartstrings of the Honorable Justices and yank the chain of the moderately lowly bailiff, I humbly submit my Dice Christ Confession in the case of the Stolen Spelljammer Helm. I’ve been DMing this campaign for nearly three years, and we’ve taken these characters from level three up to fourteen (hoping to hit 20). We started online because one player lived halfway across the country and also because it was 2020. Since then, that player has moved back to our hometown and we all get to play in person, which rules. He’s a big sci-fi head and super into spelljammer, so in our most recent session I connected the long plot arc of the campaign to Spelljammer by having them discover the vanguard of a spelljamming assault force that Llolth has assembled to attack their allies on the Prime Material Plane. In the process of all that they saw and recovered The Wavechaser, a normal wooden sailing ship which they happen to own, which the enemy had captured and converted into a spelljamming vessel so they could use it as a supply ship. My sci-fi fan player’s sorcerer sat down to start to pilot the ship away, but had to get up to finish a magical task only he could finish and while he was up the I hinted that maybe the warlock should sit down to pilot the ship since there was strong incentive to escape the area as soon as possible, and also because I worry the warlock doesn’t get to feel like a Cool Spellcaster because they’re built mostly as a supremely good Eldritch Blaster. I thought the sorcerer would just be stoked that the campaign was expanding to Spelljammer, but after the session he mentioned being pretty sore about not getting to be the pilot. I didn’t think about it at the time, but odds are good that the warlock will continue to pilot the vessel and I really stole his thunder in a moment he was really excited for. He did a great job of not making it a problem at the table, but I’m bummed that I ruined that moment. How may I be absolved and make it up to my dear friend?

Lauren Listing

Disciples of Dice Christ, and alter boy Jeff, I come to you not with a confession, but with a… baptism? A cleansing? I've listened to the POD for years but only recently have been able to play for the first time. As we gathered around the table to play, emptied our dice bags, and double checked our character sheets in our first session, my wonderful DM asked us all to make a history check for some world lore. As I rolled my very first dice in DnD, I rolled… a Nat 1… my character, a goblin paladin with an intelligence of 7, has a minus two to history checks. Yes, my very first roll in Dungeons and Dragons was a -1. My rolls have been Murph-like since. How can I cleanse myself, my character, my dice, to strengthen my connection with the almighty Dice Christ? Always a believer, Lauren (they/them)

Kyle David Perry

To the Honorable Supreme CRICK Justices and the very kind bailiff Jail, I present to you the case of the Confusing Cow. My party of three in our very close knit home game were traveling on a ship and I decided my character wanted to do something nice for the crew. So the party Druid wildshaped into a cow so that we could provide milk for everyone on board. Our DM asked me to role an animal handling check, and though untrained I rolled a Nat 20. My DM then went on to explain that when I tried to milk the cow I instead caused it to orgasm. In asking him if I had also accomplished gathering any milk from my actions the DM said No. Should I have been granted milk for the crew or was our DM astute in his givings and takings. I humbly await your judgement,

Kellie Cthulhu

May it please the delightful justices and the suspicious bailiff, I present the case of the dirty bag of holding. My first ever campaign I ran was basically if the movie Zootopia was in ancient times where towns are barely forming and maps are non-existent. My party of 6 stumbled upon a small shack of goods ran by an opossum. All of the items he had for sale were used but in fair condition. One of the players wanted to buy a bag of holding which I had described as full of cat hair, crumbs, and bits of glitter. All items placed in the bag would get dirty but it was at least something to hold their items. It was at this point I have no clue what happened. One of the newer players said they simply empty the bag out. I thought it would be funnier if they had to deal with this mild inconvenience and told them dumping it out wouldn't fully get it clean since it is a nearly infinite bag. The player who brought this person then defended them while two of the other players jumped to defend my explanation. Soon voices were raised and it turned into a full blown argument. It is important to note my boyfriend was a player and decided to be one of the people who stayed neutral. I had to step in and say we could table this argument for another time and made everyone move on but the two angry players never returned. Was I wrong to want a silly bag or did they overreact to getting a dirty bag of holding? Whoever you sentence you may punish my boyfriend as well since he decided to be neutral :)

The Dude

To the high justices and Kyle. I bring to you the case of the smart mouthed kobold. I run a game for some friends of mine. In a village they were helping with a lycan problem was taken over by a clan of overly barbaric lizardfolk. As the party was about to get some exposition on the situation, the parties kobold player went up to the head of this arm of the clan and insulted him and caused combat to start. As it stands now the entire population of the village lies dead and the party in a Ving with 12 dudes and a champion fighter left to go against. Am I wrong for making a situation where death may be imitate for the party of 6 lvl 7s or should the kobold have kept out of the situation until the goal was revealed. I await any decision you may have. - The Dude

Haybale

Oh holy clergy, I come to you with a confession. I play a rogue in a campaign that was in its final arc. The party was traversing a dungeon, when our barbarian made a seemingly out-of-character joke to our paladin that urged him to draw from the deck of many things. While our paladin is lawful good, his player is very much chaotic, and begged me to allow him to draw a card, since my character was the keeper of the deck. I got a very bad gut feeling from his request, worse than the time I drew from the deck and got euryale. After much deliberation, I decided to ignore that gut feeling, because "that's what my (chaotic neutral rogue) character would do." Well, he drew the void and vanished, and as a result, the DM was left scrambling to extend the campaign and we as a party almost got TPK'ed in the following mini boss fight without a crucial member. I fear that Dice Christ had put his hand on my shoulder but I ignored it. If I hadn't given him the card, none of this would have happened. I beg for your forgiveness!

Caroline

Hey guys, I hope you’re all having a sunny day. I am here to get your help as I beg for forgiveness from Dice Christ. A few months ago, I ran a mini-campaign to give our benevolent DM a break. Some brand-new players joined us, and as a new DM, it was a lot. In our very first session, one of my bugbears crit on the level one ranger. I dealt enough damage to permanently kill him…but I didn’t notice, and the ranger didn’t know about that rule. So the cleric healed the ranger, and we all moved on. After the session, my benevolent DM told me about my transgression. He didn’t bring it up at the table, because he didn’t want to be a huge bummer. Followers and preachers of Dice Christ, please forgive me for failing to murder the ranger after the dice had clearly declared that he should be dead. And bless my benevolent DM and all the other DMs out there for doing this insane job just so people like me can play D&D. -Caroline S. PS, my benevolent DM and I went to your Dungeon Court Live show in Boston to celebrate our 7th anniversary as a couple! It was amazing. I love you all, and all your cats. Thanks!

Oren F

To the magnanimous and elevated Justices Axford, Murphy (Murphbot? I <3 Murphbot), and Tanner, as well as the Bailiff "Whats his name I cant remember - its that guy that knows Amir"; I come seeking aid in resolving a case over a decade old that still burns my britches: The Case of the Undetectable Party Betrayal. I submit to the court that, being a decade old, some of the details of this may be a bit fuzzy to me, but generally it goes like this... My college D&D group was playing 4e, and we had been for 2 years. None of us had ever played D&D before, but we all quickly took to it and loved it. We were nearing graduation, and the incident in question takes place during the final session of our 2 year long campaign. There were 5 or 6 people in the party, though my and one other character were the only ones still using their original characters. I was playing a half-elf bard coward who specialized in non-combat. Whenever we leveled up, I would take feats or options that would increase my diplomacy, deception, performance, and/or insight. During battles, I would ride around on the shoulders of the other OG character, a hyper-buff minotaur, throwing cantrips around. I was basically useless in combat, but outside of combat my bard was incredibly skilled. Especially my insight, where my character had a broken class feat/level feat combo - the level feat was "Gain +1 to insight for each language you know" and the subclass feat was that at level 11 "Learn all languages". So the bard was very insightful. Another player in the group had been playing a paladin for about a year (and in-game for about half a year). During their time, they died and were brought back to life, and we didn't realize it but they had become a fallen paladin at that moment, forsaking their god and making a pact with Vecna to become their secret servant. In the final session (our party versus Vecna), that member of the party *betrayed* us. It was pretty crazy to have one of our critical tank/healers turn against us at that moment. None of us saw this coming - which at first might *sound* good, but it felt unsatisfying to me because it felt like it was coming out of left field. There were no "aha" moments, or big speech where they told us all the ways they had been secretly working against us. They were just like "Haha! I've been in deep-state hiding until now - actually I WORK FOR VECNA! En garde!". Admittedly, this PC and the DM were dating, so this was something they probably worked on together behind closed doors, and maybe there were subtle hints in-game between the two of them, but if so, the hints were so subtle that none of the rest of the players noticed anything (literally anything), so we were all blindsided. The other players took this in stride, but I was (at the time - and maybe a bit still) indignant that my character had not detected this betrayal at all up to this moment. The paladin's alignment change had happened in-game (and out of game) *months* ago, and my bard's passive insight was through the roof. The paladin didn't have a particularly high bluff stat, so I argued that their was no way they would have been able to hide this from my character. I asked if they had ever rolled bluff checks against my passive insight, and the DM said that they didn't need to since lying to other players shouldn't be dictated by dice. The DM told me (nicely, in the way only college friends can) to shut up and sit down after letting me rant a bit, and we got on with everything. In the end we did manage to kill Vecna and the paladin, though I believe my bard was one of only 2 characters that made it out alive. However, to this day I feel that, given that my character had given up all combat options to be a walking lie detector, he should have been able to detect whiffs of this betrayal long before the final battle. So I humbly submit myself before the court: was I (and maybe still am being) a sore player (and possibly even "that guy"), or was Razrin Cobalt, Coward of the Fey Realms, unjustly done dirty by this party betrayal? I await my potential punishment with bated breath.

Hyperbolee

May it please the esteemed Crit Justices and Tucker's girlfriend's husband. I present the case of the thieving DMPC and the gloating DM. My party was delving through a dungeon and decided to split up to do more exploration. My character, Bedwyr the human fighter, found himself in a room with a puzzle. After spending some time struggling both in-game and IRL to solve the puzzle I was successful and my DM presented me with a magical cloak. Excited to have solved the puzzle and receive my reward I hastily donned the new item but was told by my DM that I felt no immediate change and couldn't discern the cloak's properties. Cut to rejoining my party and one of my friends asking me to open a door. My DM immediately informed me that the cloak I was wearing is a cursed item and that I was essentially under the command of any creature that asked me to perform a task until the task was complete; no save or other way to resist. The party had a bit of fun with it ordering me to do this or that, but then my DM's wizard PC, Schmendrick, told Bedwyr to hand over his magical longsword of white dragon slaying (a +2 longsword that gave an additional +2 to attack and damage specifically when fighting white dragons). Schmendrick then ordered Bedwyr to not attack him and promptly teleported himself away, leaving our party alone in the dungeon and my fighter without his prized weapon. To add insult to injury, the DM would occasionally have Schmendrick randomly make appearances both in this campaign and in others brazenly flaunting that he possessed my weapon and quickly teleporting away before my character could do anything about it. I ask the court: was my DM being a complete dick for "rewarding" me with a cursed item and using it to have his DMPC steal from me, or is this just a hard lesson learned to not always trust your DM? I humbly await your judgement.

i8Pizza

A sick non copyrighted electric guitar salute to you all and a tasteful clarinet solo to Jake. May it please the court, I bring before you the case of the Tragic Thunderstep. My current group has been playing for a while now, and our previous campaign we had a different dm (we rotate around) and we where playing Saltmarsh. We got to the part where we finally got to investigate the mansion (about our 3rd session together) and we were investigating a well in the Mansion’s garden when we saw nearby Holes in the ground. Our rogue (lets call him Teddy) (who was a new player at the time) had a pet bunny he found on a nearby forest and decided he wanted to investigate the holes first. As he got closer, snakes pounced him on a surprise attack, snatching the bunny and grappling him. Our bard seeing how the situation was dire, used thunder-step and successfully one-shot most of the snakes and we proceeded to save our friend. The Dm asked the (new player) to make a perception check, which he succeeded and successfully spotted a deep-fried bunny inside of one of the snake holes. He proceeded to be horrified and question the Dm and loudly arguing with the other player about the spell which cleared the snakes. Looking back at it we laugh about it but Teddy brings it up from time to time. Could our DM and our bard have handled things better? We humbly await your judgement.

Dr. BoomBoom

To the Radiant and All-Knowing Justices and Ballif Jerk-I-Mean-Jake: May it please the court, I bring before you the case of the Devoured Intellect. I recently DM'd a game for a group of friends based on the Waterdeep: Dragon heist module. After procuring the McGuffin Stone that told the party where the vault full of embezzled gold was and how to open it, their BBEG sent a mind controlled enemy to steal it from them. The mind controlled enemy made off with the stone and sent some CR 2 Intellect Devourers (brains with feet) to slow down the party so they would chase him. The Intellect Devourer has an ability where upon a failed DC 12 INT save, the players intelligence score is reduced to zero. On the next turn, the Intellect Devourer can engage in a contested Intelligence roll with the player. If the player fails, the Intellect Devourer magically consumes and replaces the player's brain and the player dies while the Intellect Devourer takes over their body. Kromkyl, the party's Dwarven Barbarian failed his save and had his intelligence reduced to 0. One high stakes turn of combat later, the Intellect Devourer had 3 HP left but had not been defeated, so engaged in the intelligence check. We rolled in front of the board and despite a -5 to his roll, Kromkyl retained control of his brain and body. Cue cheering and fanfare. However, Kromkyl still is stuck at 0 intelligence, which means he cannot communicate or act until he regains at least a point of intelligence. I ruled that a spell such as Greater restoration can undo this, but since the monster is such a low CR, I fear that lower level parties could absolutely be whomped by something that cannot be undone by a long rest. In cases where greater restoration is not available, this monster is devastating. Was I right in my ruling? Or am I to have my own intellect devoured? I throw myself at the mercy of the gracious court.

Elana

To the great and powerful Justices in all their glory and the mediocre at best jake. I bring you a case of hard fights, poor strategy, death, and outrage. Recently in the campaign I DM the party was running away from a gang of bounty hunters, there were many NPCs who said these guys are no joke. To keep this brief I'll say that they hid in the least advantageous spot and the fight was brutal. towards the end of the fight the artificer was killed, as soon as the artificer was dead, the cleric and the sorcerer were outraged and had immediately given up even though I described the hunters as looking on deaths door too. I had to end the session there because of time and also I had to figure out what to do with the artificer now. The next session they finished the fight and it was close but they won, and on the artificers turns I took a page out of Murphs notes and described him in an inky void and he could see that the gods weren't around and I could do some foreshadowing that the 9 hells are left unchecked. Despite the victory, the cleric and sorcerer still seemed angry at the encounter and describe it as being incredibly unfair. Mind you they're level 14 and this is the only time anyone died or even came close to death. Was it ok to throw such a hard fight at them or are they right in saying that this was unfair. BTW the only the cleric and the sorcerer had thrown in the towel, the artificer and fighter were shaken by the difficulty but didn't give up.

Jack Francis West

Your Epicsauce Excellences and Awesomesauce Bailiff (I can’t believe we have the same name!) I present the case of CRIMES AGAINST GOOFMANITY. In my first ever campaign, my best friend Jordan was playing a paladin named Godfre the Perfect. We were all newbies so the vibe was goofy and chill. Then the DM introduced a veteran player, whose min/maxed homebrew Half-Giant storm barbarian quickly de-goofified the game with boring giant lore and shifted the tone of the table (he also punched my PC in the face!). In protest, Godfre killed a random prisoner (in order to liven things up) and was sent to jail in-game, forcing Jordan to improvise an elaborate series of new characters for an entire session: - 3 sisters, appearing consecutively after the former would die in a random landslide by the DM for being annoying. - and Cherie the Body Percussionist (whose rhythmic slaps underscored a very dramatic scene for the veteran’s PC). Jordan was kicked from the group that had originally supported his comedic tone and I soon followed. It became a huge source of trauma around D&D for him. What went wrong and who, dear God, is to blame? I lay our goofs before the court. ❤️ PS. SO EXCITED TO SEE Y’ALL IN SYDNEY!!! :)

Foster’s Bewildered Veterinarian

Greetings most noble crit justices and also the bailiff whose name and description will be chosen by Murph right now I bring you the case of the selective shatter may it please the court In a campaign with a party of all orcs trying to acclimate to humanoid society I play an orc cleric who hands out pamphlets written in unintelligible orcish to convert people to the religion of Kord (but that’s besides the point) We were fighting a group of orcs from the army we defected from and one of my party members got surrounded by multiple enemies and went down. On my turn I asked the DM if my party member had gone unconscious and fallen to the ground, to which she responded yes. I said that I wanted to cast shatter at a point above the group so that it would only hit the standing enemies and not my prone party member. She did not want to allow me to do it with that level of accuracy, and after some lighthearted back and forth she agreed to let me do it this once but said in any future combat I would hit my downed party member and give them a -1 death save. I humbly ask the court, did I use the spell correctly, and should I have been allowed to keep creative freedom with my rad radiuses, or was my DM correct, and I was indeed committing a geometric grievance?

William Bowen

To the juicy judges and the bodacious bailiff, may it please the court: the case of the unprompted PvP. Years ago, a couple of my players got in an in character argument that escalated when the paladin rolled an attack against the bard. I, the DM, spoke up to try to quickly stop the PvP but was ignored. To my surprise, the bard chose to laugh and honor the attack roll and subsequent damage and accept the penalties for some truly raunchy comments he had made in character. The bard took his beating and laughed it off and it led to him discovering a "crush fetish" so it was very funny. But I wonder, should I have stopped this Pvp anyway and disallowed it entirely despite the amicable way it turned our? I await your jusgement.

Ilana Galpert

May it please the court and the little bailiff boy, I present to you the case of the double betrayal. My character is an orphan and works for a Dragon Marked house (the assassin one.) In her backstory, I explained that the guy who took her in was her father figure. I told my DM that it would be way too obvious for him to betray my character, like criminally obvious, 5th grade foreshadowing obvious, and that he absolutely shouldn't do it. Lo and behold, last session he ordered his minions to stab me in the back and burned off my dragon mark tattoos. Honestly, I'm happy with this story beat. I think it works for the character and I'm excited to play her as houseless. Was it wrong of me to preemptively ask the DM not to use this NPC against my character, or was my character entitled to her ttrpg adoptive father?

Crits

The DMPC periodically returning to taunt you sent me. Your DM is a dick lol

Ellie

May it please the court and the lowly but not that low bailiff, I offer you the case of a quicksand bathbomb. Many moons ago my party and I were in a temple and were able to acquire some fantasy bathbombs. My character purchased a quicksand bathbomb, planning to use it for hijinks along the way. Recently I decided to leave this campaign because I frankly wasn't having fun so I told my DM that another character (played by my irl boyfriend) he would be taking the bathbomb. My boyfriend came out of a session last week in a tizzy saying that my DM had thrown an elden ring boss at them and was drawing power from the water. My boyfriend cleverly asked the DM if making the water go away would help and was told yes. My boyfriend threw down the bathbomb into ankle feet water and the DM narrated that the whole party was now in 5-6 feet of quicksand and that his boss was unaffected because she had wings and there is enough water in quicksand that her abilities were unhindered as well. I am upset my bathbomb that was supposed to be used for fun hijinks has been turned against my friends for evil. Does this quicksand mechanic make sense or was my old DM being a stinker?

OceanTorrent

To the honorable supreme justices and Bailiff Jock, I submit the case of the Lightning bolt in the Back. I was playing a sorcerer in my sister's campaign and one of the other players had started this session with a new character. My sorcerer at the time was a selfish person who did not like the new character. During a fight with some monsters in a camp, there was a nice line of monsters with the caveat that the new PC of also in the line. With the Player's (OOC) permission, my sorcerer cast lightning bolt to hit the whole line of 5. The new PC failed the dex save and almost died, but the all of the monsters died. The problem arises that the player was notably pissed at me OOC even though they had given me explicit permission to do it. Was I in the wrong for blasting an AOE spell that almost killed another player character or is it their fault for telling me it was okay to do and then being upset that it hurt more than they expected? I await your judgement.

Connor Johnstone

Oh dear, fair, just, and gorgeous judges and the *John Travolta voice* WICKEDLY talented, one and only, Adele Dazeem — I come to you with A Mild Case of Demonic Possession. I DM a comedy horror campaign (a la Evil Dead) that takes place in Rural Alberta, Canada, 1991 in the fictional town of Pigknife. The campaign centers largely around portals to hell opening up across rural Canada, following a team of unlikely heroes who must close them before all manner of demons (and deadites) crawl out and wreak havoc. In an early session, one of my PCs, a Paladin Christian Dad named Burt Tanners, fell into one of these portals; and emerged with a mild case of demonic possession. Many sessions later, when they were deciding where to go after a large black explosion went off on the horizon, I asked my PC to make a Constitution saving throw, without indicating why. He saved, and therefore was unaffected by the thrall of the hitchhiking demon, but after the session approached me (privately, and kindly) to express his concern that I may have been preparing to railroad him or take away his player agency. I explained to him that I was only determining what kind of information I would share (on a fail, he’d have felt unnaturally drawn towards the dark mass in the sky), and was never intending on forcing him to take any action. We left it totally amicable to all parties, but I’ve always wondered if I was stepping one foot too far with my influence. I ask you, would this kind of railroading be considered fair game? Or was I in the wrong for trying to influence my PCs decision making in that way? P.S. Later in the campaign they were able to overcome this hurdle as a team, destroying the hitchhiking demon from inside Burt’s mind, while his teammates fought the body in real life. It turned into a very special moment for Mr. Tanners and co.

DMAN

To the most excellent justices, and the (mostly) excellent baliff, I present to you for your consideration: "The Case of the Stolen Agency", or "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" For the last 15 years I have been both (occasionally) running for, and (consistently) playing under, a friend who complains about being "Forever DM" (you know the type). Nobody wants their friends to feel left out, but since my main campaign was full (my friend had turned down a seat), all I could offer was a seat at the occasional oneshot for when my main group had scheduling conflicts. My friend accepted, finally, whipped up a level 10 wizard, and sat down to join on an arc that started with the party entering into a canyon that was magically warded and guarded to the gills; specifically the opening two "rooms" had sigils that negated magical energy beyond cantrip strength. Also, they found a lot of enemy mobs that wanted to introduce the party to the ground. It was a puzzle, designed to have the "smart" characters realize that these sigils needed to be broken before the tide of battle could be turned. Instead, my friend (the wizard) ground the game to a halt for 1 hour, arguing with me at the table (on recording) that I had purposely chosen to kneecap his entire character concept by removing his magic options, and thus ruining his agency. Judges, in the game that this person runs, this person routinely TELLS players how they feel, what they do, and how they perceive (often forgoing any investigation and perception rolls), and has a penchant for "turning off" class features that may "make the game too easy". When pointed out (after game and privately) that this person ALSO routinely removed agency, I was informed that "Removing agency in a long-form campaign is acceptable, but removing agency in a oneshot is unforgivable." This person still complains about being forever DM, but refuses to play again in anything that I run. Judges, is what I did actually removing agency? And, if it is, then is there actually a meaningful difference in removing agency in a long campaign, vs a short one? Or, should I pull a Justice Murphy and "find a different friend to play with"? edit: please don't refer to me by username, just call me D, super happy to write in for the first time!

Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, Honoring the Cock

May it please the court, interest Justices Axford and Tanner, delight the underrated, oft overworked Baillif Jake, and, I dunno, do something for that other guy. I bring before you, the case of the Badass NPCs. I am the typical DM of my irl friend-groups DnD games. I am an avid DnD lover, and often create character concepts, or borrow from others, and put them into my world. The issue being, one of my players feels I make my NPCs too badass. To set the scene, the Kenku monk in the party (level 4 at the time) was strafing along rooftops, following a mark in the city I've named Undercity (100% Zaun from Arcane). The character was a CR 5 gunslinger NPC, and was loosely based on Deadeye (played by THE Brennan Lee Mulligan). Well, the party pulled him into an alleyway, and the fighter, a one armed human samurai, went to draw his sword to intimidate the gunslinger, who, in response, drew his firearm and aimed it at the fighter, giving a sly smirk and a shake of his head, saying something along the lines of "I don't think so" in that smooth, deep, southern drawl. After a little confrontation, and bad party rolls, and good DM rolls, the party decided it was best to let the gunslinger go, so they didn't draw any more unwanted attention. And I thought all was well. After the session, though, one of my players pulled me aside and accused me of making my NPCs too badass. He said he felt my NPCs always know the right thing to say, and always have a clever comeback, and that the party rarely succeeds in getting their way (which isn't true, in my opinion, the bard can't roll bellow a 22 on persuasion or deception, and that's at level 7). I always thought it was important to make both badass and wimpy NPCs, to give the world deeper character, and more often that not, the bad guys (as this gunslinger was) would be cocky or arrogant, and pretty vigilant of their surroundings, especially if they were native to a crime ridden city such as Zau- I mean, Undercity. Am I wrong? Was my NPC too badass? Do I need to make my NPCs wimpier, so the party can succeed more? Or is my player overstepping, and accusing me of something necessary to make a story exciting? I leave my fate, or the fate of my player, in your capable hands. (well, three sets of capable hands, and then Murph's. Gotta take the mediocre with the great.)

Fabrizio Moreno

Dear priests and bible camp counselor, I've come today to ask for forgiveness and redemption. A few years ago, right before the pandemic, we were playing a Homebrew version of the Star wars ttrpg with some friends. Because I was the one with more knowledge about Star wars and ttrpg I was the GM, it was my first time ever GMing a campaign and also my first time ever playing, so as you can guess the stakes were high and so were my stress levels. In our first session our wookie Ranger found a couple of jawas trying to steal from her store, she tried to scare them but even with a +9 intimidation and a DC 12 she failed, after that they roll initiative and things went South. Out of the two 10hp jawas, one of them died instantly because our wookie got a Nat 20 and dealt 22 points of damage (1d12 times two) and the other failed his "death saves" after being throw out of the store and getting 15 points of damage. At this point I have two things I want to clarify, the first one is that I tried tod/ deescalate the situation in the middle of the battle (giving her another chance of intimidation, strength checks with disadvantage for being a target too small for a wookie, etc) but nothing work out, and second, and most important, is that THIS TWO JAWAS WERE VERY IMPORTANT TO STORY! They were fugitives from a illegal slave trader ring and supposed to give the party their first mission to rescue their children who were still captives in the slave ring, plus I had a whole backstory for them, their kids and even that she was pregnant, so when other party member got a Nat 20 in the investigation check of the corpses I had to tell them everything, about them, the children, the pregnancy, the slave ring, EVERYTHING. Needless to say, chaos ensued. Some were in shock, some were angry (understandable) and my friend the wookie went through the five step of mourning in 2 minutes. After that they ended up destroying the illegal slave trader ring anyway and the campaign went on, but 'till this day everytime someone mentions the "jaws incident" we all go silent and say "we don't talk about that". Now, here I am wondering: could I have done something different? Or was it all part of the game in the hands of the dice Christ?

Elliot Sitford

To the honourable high crit judges and my favourite bailiff Jake! If it pleases the court, After some time and consideration I have come to question my own judgment. As a first time dm with a group of new players; I was describing the layout of a cave they had been walking through, in the opening they walked into there was MULTIPLE deep pits all around the floor, they were all deep enough not to see the bottom. I was getting ready to set up an encounter in the cave (a gelatinous cube) when one of the players decided to climb 100ft down. I didn’t plan for anything to be in the hole, but as they were 50 down they wanted to see if they could see anything. A Nat 20…. So I just tell them they see something shimmer down there, so continuing they find a ring on a skeletal hand. After hearing this the other players want to start climbing down the same hole. It grabs the player and curses them. Was it wrong for me to curse them. I just wanted to set up a room full of pit falls. (For players to jump into to avoid being eaten by the cube) Which even when we got to the fight they all stood still… swinging at the cube… being consumed and breaking out every round. Was I the bad dm? Or were the players bad and deserved being cursed.

Mike Bishop

Please forgive me Dice Christ, for I have sinned! I DM for a campaign for my coworkers. A few sessions in and they were in a dungeon having their first epic battle between and undead lich. Towards the end of the session, one of my players turned themselves into a tiny poison dart frog. They then proceeded to climb to the top of a 50 foot ceiling to where they decided to fall on top of the Lich’s head to hopefully kill it. I told them that it’s similar to been hit on the head with a quarter that they can roll a D6 for damage. They had rolled a 5. Unfortunately, the Lich had 6 HP and to not punish their unique and funny action, I lied and described how this tiny frog beamed my Lich’s head and killed it. I kneel down and ask for your frog-giveness my Holy Dice Christ as I did not want to disappoint my silly players.

Romlette

To the honourable, Justices Axford, Tanner and Murphy and the underpaid BAILif Jake, may it please the court. I bring the case of the impounded ship. I am playing my first sci-fi campaign set in the Astral Frontier, a play by post. We have a 'space ship' that we go around in, and this is the first time we've ever docked it at a crowded place with actual people. When we were leaving the ship on the second day to go into the sewers of this space station, I asked the DM if it would be alright to just leave our ship alone like this for so long. His answer was 'it was what you did yesterday', and on that day, nothing bad happened to our ship. Cut to us down in the sewer, after a particularly nasty fight and phone call with my characters mother. His sister, who was a political figure on the space ship texted him during out short rest to freak out over the conversation. Their relationship is very contentious, and the day before she even cast Geas on him to try and convince him that the crew was only friends with him to sell his body parts on the black market. She antagonized him, and he taunted her with the fact that their mother never says that she loves her. This resulted in the characters sister IMPOUNDING our ship, with us deep in the sewers and no way to stop it. One of our party seems to keep harping on this fact, but I personally don't think its fair for me to have expected that consequence when I didn't even know impound lots exist. We just found out phones exist in this world, and where the technology starts and ends is unclear, since we've been in space for most of the campaign. I ask, with the due diligence I did before hand with asking about our ship, and the implication the DM gave me that it would be fine, do I deserve to be put out in the airlock? I humbly await your deliberation.

Dan Healey

Makes no sense, we still arent sure, he was the type of DM that was very "It's me Vs. The Pcs" so i honestly think he was trying to TPK us

UrBoyDakota

To the most esteemed Crit Justices and the bailiff everyone loves or thinks smells like smelly cheese (depending on how our judges are feeling). I bring forth the case of the Fraudulent Fireball Fallout. I was searching for cool and interesting monsters to throw at my players to shake up combat and I came across a monster called the Candle Wax Golem. One ability it had that I was excited to use was an innate ability to cast Fireball which would recharge similar to a dragons breath weapon. During combat, the golem rolled highest on initiative and used its Fireball on the still grouped up players. The bard wanted to use counter spell to protect the party, but I denied it on the basis that this was an innate ability and that the creature wasn’t actually casting a spell since it didn’t have access to spell casting. We had a pretty heated debate over the course of about 30 min trying to find an official ruling but I eventually laid down the “dms word is law” card so we could get back to the game. To this day my players still razz me anytime I use an enemy caster in combat, sarcastically asking if their spells also don’t count as spells. So I ask you honorable judges, was I too much of a hard ass on my players for denying them a chance to whomp my cool monster? I await your judgement. Ps. If it matters, the encounter turned out to be much tougher for the party than expected but they made it out relatively ok.

The Lady Of Cram Over A Field Of Daniels

To my Dearest justices and the Bailiff who looks like a such a big boy in his high chair and bib I bring you the Case of a character that bluffed away an entire camping A few years ago I was running a sci-fi campaign in the starfinder system I had a player who decided they wanted to be Krang from the ninja turtles but not like them but actually Krang that was transported to the starfinder universe All was well at first we had lots of jokes and fun sessions But things took a darker turn when Krang started to max out bluff And decided he would direct the story with how he wanted The next few months ensued with Krang maxing out bluff and lying to every alien he came across to to weasel his way into a few more credits It got so bad that I had to throw out multiple full sessions As they lied to gain the trust of a tribe of comet riding oni This eventually led to them having a celebration at there home base bar with all the npcs they met along the way including some from the tribe Krang then decided to help one of the other pcs who had just brought their new character into the session To help them modify their rifle When they collectively rolled 2 nat 1’s the gun started to flash red and Krang realized it wound explode instead of letting people know he decided to lie and give it as a gift to one of the Comet oni saying it was a present about a minute later the gun exploded killing the oni and causing chaos in the bar the main bartender and quest giver was trying to figure out what happened When Krang lied and said the new character that had just joined was the culprit This led to solo combat that the bartender died from and the PC that’s was on the run had their honourbound character take their life after the atrocity But Krang had finally rolled low enough on bluff when making fake letters to really drive it home that he was Innocent The new leader of the bar found out and tricked Krang into getting a new bio upgrade Where he strapped him to the table injected him with a charisma poison and started to shoot him over and over Krang did escape his bonds but then I rolled a nat 20 and did enough damage to instantly kill them Were my actions justified or did I get to lost in my own angry sauce

Momin Shahab

To the incredibly attractive and deeply kind judges as well as that clown that reads these (unless we are being nice to him in which case the clown is also attractive and kind). I bring you the case of the horizontal player My group was spread all over the world afyer covid and as such we are scheduling weekly sessions taking into account THREE different timezones, all of which absolutely fuck my shit up. We normally have session at 3 or 6 AM for me (i work the night shift so its not too bad). One day i came back exhausted from work and was in bed when I remembered we had a session planned. So i just hopped onto the call while fully laying down snuggled into a massive quilt. The other players began to complain saying that I would never have allowed someone to play lying down if I was dming (true) and should extend the same courtesy. I said that was before this timezone fuckery began and that I was going to die that very night if I was forced to sit up. They eventually let me continue to lay down and play and we had a fun session, though I was razzed throughout. Judges, was i wrong for playing DND while completely horizontal? Or should I have held myself to a more vertical standard. I await your judgement.

Caitrin

Oh Court, great and powerful, and guest baliff, hear my case. My party was fighting a coven of hags, and after another member of our party killed one of the three. Our DM, instead of continuing the fight, had both of the other hags flee, one of them disappearing into the ethereal plane, and another turning into a swarm of beetles via Polymorph and burrowing into the ground. He said that unless any of us had anything preventing them from fleeing, combat was over. I said that my Bladesinger wizard cast Dispel Magic on the hag transformed into a beetle swarm, since the spell doesn’t require you to see the effect you’re ending. It wasn’t until I successfully rolled an 18 to dispel the Polymorph that my DM started arguing that I couldn’t do that. First, he said I couldn’t see the beetles, so I couldn’t cast it. Then, he agreed that I could cast it, but then ruled that there was just an un-polymorphed Hag 15ft underground, that she took no damage, and would just escape on her next turn via another spell if none of us could reach her by then. My fellow players argued that she couldn’t cast any spells with verbal or somatic components if she was immobilized under the ground, but were ignored. This wouldn’t have bothered me as much if my DM hadn’t counter spelled a Booming Blade attack AFTER it hit in the previous round, and if I hadn’t burned one of my only 2 third level spells to cast it (we’re only 5th level). I beg your benevolent ruling.

Zornch

Greetings Dearest judges and um, no just the judges I come to you with my first playing dnd that went pretty weird, I started dnd after I had listened to your podcast for a few episode back when it first started so I was excited I rolled a ranger and was ready to go but when I got there everyone was use weird homebrew classes and races and as the session went on it evident that they were kinda broken and I was just sitting there able to do nothing. I went to another session and realized I wasn’t having fun just sitting there watching people do cool things that did insane damage. It didn’t look like the dm had any plans to fix or change the characters so I didn’t go anymore and I left my gnome ranger and I’ve never played dnd since. Was I wrong to ditch the session or should I have stuck it out and hoped for the best Also I remembered who I was trying to great so hello any possible cats in the room

NoLifeKitty

May it please the court! I bring to the judges (and handsome bailiff Jake) the case of the sad old Lich. During a playing of Curse of Strahd my wife (eladrin rogue) was told of a old lich losing his memory and becoming lonely from solitude. Being a kind soul irl she immediately decided there’s no need to fight the lich and befriended it. Rolling well and convincing our Druid player to cast minor restoration to help him, she managed to befriend the lich and he walked us through the back half of a dungeon where he shared some gold and told us of the item we needed to kill Strahd. My wife told the lich she wanted to stay in touch (purely for his benefit not for a powerful ally) and our DM (my brother) immediately disagreed out of game and said he’s too powerful to be called up. My wife argued she would never call upon him for anything but company and to keep him in good spirits. Eventually the DM relented and allowed my wife 3 scrolls she could use to contact the lich. She accepted but ultimately never used the scrolls, she simply wanted a pen pal lich but got 3’single use scrolls that she’s too scared to use because she just wanted a lich friend. Should our DM have just given her a cute lich buddy or was he right to stifle this relationship?

JC

To the illustrious justices and bailiff, especially Murphbot, I, JC (not Jesus), bring to you the case of Ara the Illusion Wizard. The player, who was my first DM, created him in my second campaign as a utility caster and as such took no damaging cantrips or spells. His only moves in combat were often trying to cast hold person and when the enemy inevitably passes the saving throw bc he had terrible luck with enemies passing saves, he sat there and did nothing. He would then constantly complain about not being able to do anything. Even after I gave him a damaging cantrips, ability to use Heightened Spell metamgic, AND the ability to force enemies to auto fail saves and hold dual concentration, he seemed to always have problems with the combat. Justices, was there any way to appease this player or was I doomed to always run encounters that were never up to par.

Connor Tuftin

Your honourable Justices and Bailiff Jeff....? I present to you the case of The Dragon Stepfather In my first dnd campaign I played as a Halfing Bard named Finnion Tosscoble who was raised on a farm, but raised in the stable with the pigs. Finnion had an affinity for animals and later in the campaign a baby Bronze Dragon named Banoot was brought into the party by Finnion. Banoot became beloved to the party and like a son to Finnion. He was with us for the majority of the campaign untill the end game when we were preparing to fight the BBEG. We found a group of ancient dragon priests who offered to take in Banoot and keep him safe. Ultimately the choice fell onto Finnion and I thought it would be safest to send Banoot with them to be taught the proper ways of his kind and wouldn't have to fight the BBEG. I have been roasted about this for almost 7 years of playing D&D by my group and Banoot even made an appearance in later campaigns obviously scorned by the choice I made as an elder dragon. I ask justices was I right in sending Banoot to be safe and with his own kind or should I be punished to the fullest extent for betraying the trust of my dragon son?

Hoid's Friend

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the worthy Bailiff - I present to you the case of metamagic fuckery. I play a divine soul sorcerer in a campaign with four other party members and our lovely DM. In our last session we were fighting corrupt noble cabal when our fighter and druid died in the same round right next to each other. I have access to revivify and was 20 feet away from my friends and next in the initiative but didn't have the requisite 300 gp diamond to cast the spell. One of the nobles we killed was described as wearing an ostentatious pendant with "a diamond the size of a grape" and was 30 feet from where our druid and fighter lay, so when it was my turn, I moved to my friends, used Quicken Spell & Mage Hand as a bonus action to retrieve the necklace from the corpse, and then used Twin Spell to cast revivify on both the fighter & druid in one action and with just the single diamond. This was critical because 1) this fight had been building for both these characters stories for the majority of the campaign and I wanted them to participate and 2) I only had the one spell component. Another player argued I couldn't use two instances of metamagic in one turn and since I had already used Quicken on my Mage Hand, I couldn't use twin spell for revivify. I argued that metamagic specifies that you can't use multiple metamagic on one spell, but doesn't specify for a turn. My DM sided with the other player and only allowed me to bring back one of my friends! (I brought back the druid and am still wracked with guilt over this choice). We eventually revived the fighter but not until the fight was over. I ask you, great supreme crit - was I breaking the rules by trying two metamagics in one turn or were my party and I robbed of the double revivify? I submit myself to your wise judgment

Lux

May it please the Court. For what pleases the Court should please the bailiff. I present to you the case of the possibly-too-deadly mushroom. I was dming a GOT themed campaign where the players were encouraged to plot against one another. Everyone was close family or friends, and everyone had agreed to the scheming theme beforehand. After a particularly tough battle against the Mushroom King of the Underdark, the players received extremely powerful mushrooms with unique magical properties. One of them, the deadly aminata, gave every player in the party a plus two to the stat of their choice, but could only be activated if the party murdered one of the other characters. My sister got the party to murder her bf's character. Needless to say, he was a little bitter, and his new character, when introduced, was designed specifically to be deceptive and with danger sense. The campaign continued, but the distrust was such that the players had a hard time completing missions because they were constantly worried about being stabbed in the back. Did I go to far with my deadly magic mushroom, or did I follow the theme of the campaign to its logical conclusion?

anniemurphs

To the most mellifluous Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the ever patient Baliff (or judge if we're in Boston) Jake. May It Please The Court, I bring to you a case of the Witty Rogue: I'm playing a lvl 2 Rogue in a Witchlight campaign w/ some new friends that I met on Twitter and joined a smaller Naddpod discord with. (We go by The Nelsonettes. Bc Willie Nelson.) Our party is going to the Library of Knowledge, Hoskelu (for visual, it looks like El Dorado... Like the DreamWorks movie). In order to be a let into the library, we had to go through some rooms with riddles&problems to solve, and in one of the rooms was a sword in the center and an inscription on the wall that said "Speak My Name." In a quick act of wit and goofery, I said "My Name," to which our dm told me to roll a persuasion check "against the dm". Now, I knew it was a joke, but I did roll a 25 on the check. However! This did not apparently solve the riddle, though we got out just fine. Judges I am at an impasse. I think that since I rolled a 25 persuasion that I should've gotten somewhere with that, but also kinda think, because it was so stupid, that maybe something in the room should've attacked me. What say you? Forever thankful for you guys and the fact I was able to see The Croissanting live, Annie (ie. the girl who dressed as Bukvar if he were a book but a human @ the Boston show)

Tlalli’s World

Oh most benevolent and beautifully appointed justices and the most gracious of all bailiffs. My five-year-old has decided that she’s going to run a campaign and she wants to be not only a PC but all the NPC’s. She has decided that this world is going to be a candy land and her big bad guy is a dragon made of soda. I tried to explain to her that soda is a liquid and needs a container she then responds with “ The dragon is the container so it’s not a problem.”She proceeds to explain to me that she is going to be a fairy goddess and that’s going to be her player character but the fairy goddess also wants the player characters (the rest of the family) to accept the request for aid to defeat the dragon that is stopping her from going home. She then says that we’re going to play a sample game with the rest of the family. So everybody on the spot created a character, my husband created a Paladin and my sisters are two extremely chaotic evil Fea and I’m still not sure if my brother had decided to play a Goliath or if he was just like a half giant barbarian but no one was prepared for what was going to happen. My beautiful child and her excitingly chaotic mind proceeds to run the game for 20 minutes it started off with everybody meeting the beautiful fairy goddess who needs to make her way back home, it was 15 minutes of role-play walking through the forest and a lot of touching things that should not be touched. My sisters touched some Poison ivy and failed both con checks resulting in their instant deaths after both insta-deaths we immediately come upon her big bad guy A huge Cola Dragon. My husband being the valiant hero decides to try to talk reason with the new bad guy that we’ve approached, my daughter rolls of Nat 20 which was my husband’s exact ac and as we all know a crit. We then see This huge Cola Dragon’s breath attack, and boy were we unprepared. . She immediately begins to kill all of the players with her dragons breath attack which I forgot to mention is pop rocks. Every time someone is struck with one of these breath attacks they immediately upon contact of sweaty skin begin to sizzle and explode. Her Fairy Goddess was the second one to die as she was next in the initiative order. After realizing she had just killed her player the game quickly ended because she wanted to bring the fairy back to life but she killed to only two characters with healing spells. Was I wrong for allowing my child to go so extremely hard on her own player character fairy goddess and in spite of her clear cut need to get this very Goddess back to her home realm. I humbly await your judgment. Btw. Her dragon has an impossible to defeat armor class of 110 I told her she couldn’t do that and my husband overruled me saying it’s her game let her have this. I did not feel bad when he was first in initiative, or his resulting death by the breath. From the mean mommy.

Toth

To the honorable justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, as well as the magnanimous bailiff Jake, may it please the court; I bring you the case of the drunken brawler, friend of booze. As a DM, I was running a homebrew “beer run” one-shot for my level 4 party where they returned back to the very first tavern they started their journey in, 9 months prior, and were tasked with finding out what was happening to all the supply shipments from the local distillery that had mysteriously halted. While investigating the happenings surrounding this sudden stop to the flow of booze to this tavern, they found out that the head of this distillery had become very reclusive over the past month and was said to be working on anew sort of product for everyone. Upon learning this, half-orc player character Slosh, the drunken brawler (homebrew class similar to a combination of monk and barbarian), suggested to the party that this sounds above the level to him and thinks that the head brewer should be left to his own accords, but continued on with the party since they decided to continue investigating. Once they started searching the basement levels of the distillery, animated kegs started attacking them and the party went into battle, with Slosh reluctantly attacking the kegs, stating that it is a waste of perfectly good booze and it's like fighting his own friend. In the basement, the party found indication that the head brewer had started worshipping the god Olidammara, a deity of alcohol and revelry, and hoping to use divine intervention to create the world’s perfect brew, but became more and more insane during this process, renaming himself “Draftstaff.” The party then travelled down further into the inner sanctum of the distillery, finding that this Draftstaff had set up an altar there and was summoning ethylmentals and fermentals to create an army of alcohol. Draftstaff, angered that the party was trespassing and trying to stop his creations then sent his elementals at the party and began initiative. Once again, Slosh had declared that he viewed Draftstaff as not wrong and didn't view him as an enemy but continued to support his party. Slosh then threw his harpoon at draftstaff and grappled him, using one of his harpoon's abilities. On Draftstaff's turn, he then used the spell "suggestion" where, as the DM, I apparently said "please untie me and then go use this rope to tie up your friends" rather than "tie up your allies." Trying to weasel his way out of what was clearly intended, Slosh's player then brought up the argument that due to the entire session, based on his reluctance of fighting anything in the entirety of the dungeon and the fact that his whole character is based around alcohol, he would in fact view alcohol as his true friend and that he should be able to take this suggestion as tying up the ethylmentals and fermentals instead of his party mates. We looked up the dictionary definition of "friend" and debated for a few minutes on how this was to rule, and then ended up agreeing upon he would have to follow the "suggestion" spell to the best of his ability which meant tying up whoever was closest to him (party member or elemental) and then going outward from there in order of whoever was closest, just so we could keep the game rolling. Please most honorable justices, was this argument valid or absolute batshit based on my miswording, even though the intent was quite clear?

Nathan Van Ness

To the honorable, noble, attractive justices and Jake, May it please the court, I would like to present a case of a narrative breaking use of rules and subsequent theft of action economy. In my most recent session, we are nearing the climax of our current arc and a dragon turtle that we were supposed to get a mcguffin from was trapped behind a magical barrier while we were fighting a boss. The boss stole a previous mcguffin from us and teleported us away, giving the order to flood the chamber as he did so. The DM made it very clear that the chamber was flooding fast, indicating that we were going into an escape scene. I took off flying (potion) with a dash, but before I'd committed to that action, the DM said, "are you sure you don't want to do a perception check or anything?" A clear, hint and nudge, so I did. I rolled well and discovered that the dragon turtle was still alive but weak behind the barrier, so I cast Dispel Magic to get through. The DM said, "wait a second," and looked something up. Then he said, "oh nevermind. It says that this barrier can't be dispelled with Dispel Magic." I asked for clarification, and he said, "I thought you could do it, but this says you can't." I said, "you know you can just say that it works, right? No one will know the difference." He said he had to follow the rules. I said, "fine," and put my piece back where I'd dashed before. He pulled it halfway back and said, "you can actually only go this far since you already used you action." I replied, "wait, so you tell me to do a thing that turned out to be impossible, and you're still going to take my action and my spell slot?" He replied, "I just told you to make a perception check. Everything after that was your choice." Now, I was already frustrated because I'd been rolling like Murph, so maybe I need a more objective eye. I put it to the court. Am I wrong, or is this some bullshit?

garett144

May it please a Burgerking drive through worker. I present the case of the joker golem. I was playing a rune knight with carving proficiency, my cousin joined as a guest for one session but instead of rolling a character he used a clay golem stat block. During a purple worm fight an attack from the worm did something screwy to him and he started attacking all of us. Upon a 22 insight check all the DM gave me was "he just looks angry" what it was was an enrage mechanic in the golem player. Kinda miffed that thats what a 22 got me. I decided to hold down the golem and carve his face into a smile to see if that stopped him from "looking angry" It didn't. Was I being salty at the DM, or was my interpretation of "he just looks angry" fair? In the end we all had a laugh at this so there are no hard feelings. PS I have an idea on a NADDPOD board game, you wanna hear?

Kaola

To the most supreme court justices and the I guess mediocre bailiff, it's hard to tell, he didn't make much of an impression. I humbly ask for your ruling on the Christmas Fiasco of 2022. My friends and I were itching to play d&d, as we had taken a break from our main campaign for the holidays, so we decided to play a Christmas themed one shot. The DM asked us to make Christmas themed level 17 characters, so I played a 400 year old gnome wizard (flavored to be an elf that works for Santa) named Grampus. I've never played a high level spell caster and was excited to use a 9th level spell for the first time, so I chose Power Word Kill. I know it was a bold choice, but I didn't know when I would get to use such powerful spells again. The party was a slightly burnt gingerbread man, Rudolf, who was now retired and training new reindeer, a goblin tinkerer, and I. The one shot went pretty well, we fought against corrupt snowmen, living Christmas trees, and corrupt holiday characters like the Easter bunny and cupid. Our goal was to fight our way into Santas workshop and save Santa from the corrupting force, thus saving Christmas; however, as characters we had a lot of fun roleplaying how awful and power hungry Santa was. Two of us chose to have a military background and improvised being involved in the Penguin Conflict of '08, which lead to more fun roleplay as we were fighting together again. By the time we made it to Santas workshop, we had all decided Santa was a dictator and we were confident we could take him down if we wanted to. To save Santa, we had to bring him to the brink of death and use a powerful scroll to break the curse; however, when we got to that point in combat, we were aiming to kill, so I used Power Word Kill. He was under 100 hit points, but the DM made him go unconscious instead of allowing us to kill him. We were disappointed that we couldn't overthrow the dictatorship, but at least we saved Christmas? I ask, should my spell have killed Santa, allowing us to establish a democracy in the North Pole, or was the DMs decision to finish the one-shot as written correct? I humbly await your decision.

Cam K. (Prof. Rulez Lawyer)

To the honorable justices and the surveyor of peaceful judgement, Jakey… I HAVE AN APEAL! Direct your attention please to The Case of the Climbing Centaur: A Bonus Case from Jan. 6 You ruled in favor of the DM, sighting that the Equine Build racial ability prevents my client, the Ranger PC from climbing at their full speed. I believe this is a gross oversight. Equine Build states that climbing, “costs 4 extra feet INSTEAD of the normal 1 EXTRA foot.” I would argue that because the optional 6th level class ability, Roving states, “You gain a climbing speed and a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.” my client would not, in fact, add the “normal 1 extra foot” to their climbing speed. THEREFORE, the “4 extra feet” cost of movement would not apply. We also must look at the SPIRIT of the rule, judges. Having a climbing speed would mean you are an adept climber. You have worked with the resources you have, trained against your natural hinderances to CLIMB, so why should those hindrances still mechanically apply? I humbly request you change your ruling in light of this new evidence. Rule Lawyer for hire, Cam K. esq.

Rykon Provost The Drake Warden Of Moon Stone

To the beloved Direct Messenger Brian Murphy The cold as ice, Caldor Killday, The Knitting with fury Sol, and the Glen slayer Callie, I beg your help as proud members of the crit justice on The Curse Of Short form content. I Dm a heavily homebrewed spell jammer campaign and have two players. Two make it simple player 1 will be Huxely and Player 2 Andrew. Andrew loves to pull his phone out and start playing a TikTok or Instagram reel in the middle of roleplay, combat, or even a scene where I am talking to HIS character. This has upset me and the Huxely often and when I spend so much time world building and combat crafting it gets frustrating. The condrum comes that I would have to one to replace him if he left. So I ask the court am I damned to listen to Peter Griffin during combat or should I leave him and his phone on the road.

Noah Steele

To the honorable judges and jarf I come to you once again with another case. I am recently starting college and have joined the dnd club with some of my friends and a couple people who I hadn’t met before. I am doing for one player, a cleric named tofur, who is new to the group. A different pc in our campaign is a lycanthrope and is having fun with all of the benefits that come with that. Well during one of the sessions tofur decided to threaten the werewolf player to cure his lycanthropy if they didn’t do what he wanted. I managed to stop him by passive aggressively saying “why would you do that” but it pissed off tofur that much that he fully left the group. I know dnd is a game of agency but I feel like I did the right thing yet others in my group are calling me callous and harsh. Should I have let it slide? Sincerely, all of the Noah’s

Aaron W

To the supremest of justices Axford, Murphy, and Caldwell, and the physically strong but dangerously steely-eyed Bailiff Jake, I have a D&D cold case that has bugged me for over two decades, going all the way back to my first ever session of Dungeons & Dragons. I was in middle school, and my new friend Bobby mentioned this crazy “tabletop game” that all my friends had recently had a session for, but I missed out on. After asking a lot of leading questions, he finally offered to host a session for me. When I showed up to the sleepover, none of our mutual friends were there and I was surprised to find it was just him and me. I spent hours creating a wandering warrior whose lifelong goal it was to become a golden dragon (I know, I was in middle school.) Reluctantly, we started playing D&D. He seemed to be going through the motions, essentially running a combat with some bandits and a turned over cart that slogged forward in 3.5 style. After what felt like hours, Bobby finally stopped mid-combat and said it was time to go to sleep. Coming off my first ever D&D session, my mind was racing. I couldn’t help but stay up and ask random questions in the dark about where the story was going. Eventually, Bobby was clearly tired of it and said “one of the brigands has a potion that you drink and turn into a giant golden dragon. The end.” Then stopped talking I was so confused by what I thought was a fun convo, I wound up walking home and not staying over for the sleepover. The session has haunted me for years, and to this day I’ve never brought it up to Bobby. Was I in the wrong for asking to do a D&D session he wasn’t interested in? Or was I too insistent on my character getting a proper ending that I doomed him to an unsatisfactory Deus Ex Bobby-na? - Aaron in L.A.

Wzrdkng

To the honorable Supreme justices and the lowly, dishonorable, cowardly, Bailiff Jake. I come to you for your humble guidance and may whoever you punish ne deserving of it. I run a campaign for 3 players, all level 15 (firbolg circle of dreams Druid, eladrin oath of conquest paladin/divine sorcerer and a human variant death domain cleric) they were coming into a brush against the bbeg, a winnable fight but extremely challenging, whichI mentioned beforehand as to prepare them. Fast forward to the fight, i speced the bbeg off of the new vecna stats on dnd beyond, but needed him a bit as they were only level 15, but using his flight of the damned ability I took a good chunk of health from the pal/sorc and cleric. The Druid after seeing this used his hidden step ability to get away and hide behind some boulders. The stats for vecna give him truesight so I narrated that he saw the Druid move over there and attempt to hide, so the Druid in response cast wall of force on himself. The bbeg then tried casting a spell on his next turn to attack the druid, well wall of force prevents any magic from coming through it, so it failed, I tried using an ability that erupted from the ground beneath him but he had made it a sphere so I was unable to come from below to effect him. I then tried to teleport into the sphere, again met with the argument that he couldn't pass through it as he was using magic, so the bbeg's response? He began counterspelling everything the Druid tried to cast, heals, ranged spells, any attempt to do magic he shut it down and began focusing on the other two. He very quickly became upset and kept saying that he couldn't counterspell him forever so he was just going to wait it out, well the stats for vecna give him counterspell as a reaction so I actually could continue to spam it, which I did, eventually after the paladin and cleric went down, he dropped the wall of force and ran to heal his allies. Eventually they were able to defeat him but he remained very salty afterwards and it caused some small arguing at the table. My question is should I have been able to teleport into the wall of force? And if not am I the bbeg for spamming him with counterspell for an entire fight or should he have come out of hiding and helped his team mates sooner?

TickleMe Chublewunkler

May it please the court, the honorable judges, and their bailiff or whatever... The case of the hammock withholding: At my job, my former boss who has since moved on and i bonded over d&d and eventually found myself playing together alongside some of our coworkers and one of his long time d&d buddies (there is a part two to this involving him but i will skip that for now for the sake of keeping it short). My boss, the dm, had never dmd before this but had been a player character in many campaigns. I had decided to play what essentially was kermit the frog as a gunslinger, complete with a banjo that's headstock detaches and doubles as a rifle, and yes i did indeed do the voice! During the first session, we found ourselves at a festival and when heading to our sleeping places for the night, we were told the festival had tents for us already set up. I, knowing Kermit the Frog, suggested i myself fashion a hammock across two trees to fall asleep in as this is more in line with the character and does not make much material difference. This was denied by the dm, even when i explained my reasoning, and though i thought that it may be due to an encounter he had planned which required us all be in tents none came to pass. Should he have let me have this little frivolous flavor change or should i be punished for letting this stick in my craw for so long?

Darkrisky

The Daddy Killing Patreon To the incredibly badass judges and the plain bad bailiff Jared, I give you the case of the patron-less daddy killer. There’s a lot to this case so I will keep it as brief as possible. I play a sea elf fathomless warlock of a noble background with a surfer/stoner vibe and a distrust of authority. She’s at a school to get away from her overprotective parents who sent her there with a necklace of sending. (I have explicitly said to my DM I am excited to play this class and that I did not want an evil patron.) During their adventures, my character was given a flute by an evil entity. Not wanting the responsibility, she destroyed it. As she did, her patron began to scream into her head something about freedom and “destroying all the sea elves”. Concerned, my character decides to use her necklace of sending to call her dad to ask if he knows anything about her patron. When she contacts her dad in a FaceTime-y way, her dad screams at her that she has doomed her whole city by destroying this flute. Turns out that destroying the flute resulted in her patron being released from the plane her city elders were keeping it. A tentacle then rose from the water and skewered her father. My character ran to the headmaster of the school to get help and he opened a portal to her home city which was being destroyed by my character’s patron. Suddenly, my patron got sucked into the sky without any explanation. My DM then turns to me and says I’ve lost all my warlock levels and had to choose a new class! He was surprised when I said my character killed herself and then I quit the campaign. He quit DMing this campaign after this because he “got bored”. So I ask this of you judges, was I wrong to be miffed and should have waited to see where the cool storyline he supposedly had planned went or did I have every right to be upset? I await your humble ruling.

Dominic Stacey

Dear great justices and the ever humble bailiff, I bring you the case of the one you didn't want to be the very best May it please the court I was making a character for a new game my friend was DMing, who was focusing on summoning monsters. After replying to some messages the DM sent me about my character's backstory, he asked me what my characters goal was for the campaign, feeling I'd already answered that from previous questions I gave him a joke answer, to be the very best that no one ever was. The DM stopped messaging me after that, little did I know I'd made a mistake Later that same night I saw the DM in person and he was telling me all these rules and extra features he added into the game so that I could have pseudo-pokemon battles and win gym badges. While I liked his rules and thought they were really thought out, I didn't want to do any of that and when I tried to say, "I'm sorry that was a jok-" The DM cut me off stating, "it's too late now, this is happening," So I bit back any further comments and for the few sessions the campaign lasted I fought fake Ash and his not-quite Pikachu monster. I ask the court, was I in the wrong for the initial message, or should the DM have not used these rules when I tried to say I didn't want to do it? I await your verdict

Brandon Boling

If it may please the court of cheerful glees, and to the bailiff who is forever doomed to bend there knee, I bring to thee a case of potential greed. I am a DM for my home game that I run for my fiancée (a fairy rogue) and her best friend (shifter cleric). During one of our sessions, my fiancées characters own father was murdered in front of her by her half sister, unable to move due to the use of a magic item. The sister left a challenge for the party as a final showdown of sorts. This led to them breaking into her dead dads vault and acquiring some interesting magic items, 3 of those being a “tincture of Elkarot”. Through the use of a Nat 20 Arcana check, I allowed the party to fully identify the use of this tincture, as well as the dangers. Essentially, the vial allows the user to gain a level, as it is a mixture of the dead god Elkarots own heart. This worked out as there was 3 members of the party, so each get a level for the big fight ahead of them which they severely needed. However, the cleric of our group, suggested they drink multiple vials to overpower the sister. I informed them due to the Nat 20, they would know that overconsumption of this vial may lead to terrible experiences, similar to a magic like seizure which would require immediate death saves. High risk, High reward. Despite being told this, the Cleric said, “it’s okay, I know that with seizing, you just have to let it pass, so no one touch me!” As a safety measure, there character even summoned a spectral guardian to defend them if the party got worried and tried to help. They drank multiple vials, and immediately started seizing. Of course this is not an actual seizure, and this inevitably led to their death due to poor saves, and none of the party being able to help as the guardian attacked for getting close. Justices, I ask of you, should they have recovered from the magical seizure, or should they remain in the afterlife, forever doomed to explain to Elkarot what they did? I await your ruling.

Gavin French

To the Honorable justices and almost, but not quite equally honorable Bailiff. You have helped carry our Burdens for years now and I humbly ask that you let us help carry yours. Do you have any Cases that have long since been unanswered? Thank you and we are ready to bear the weight

KennyH

To the Honorable Justices, and the Most Honorable Supreme Crit Bailiff, Josh. In the spirit of valentines day, I bring before you the case of the anti-cupid DM Many years back, I joined a Roll20 game of 5e. It was described going for Anime/Final Fantasy style "Over the top" story and gameplay. He gave the PC's a lot of freedom to describe the things their attacks and abilities did, and also just make up lore about the world. Problems started between the DM and our Palladin. This Paladin was lawful good and the player did an awesome job of RPing him without being too much of a goodie-goodie-two-shoes. His Paladin ended up in a romantic relationship with the party's Druid. This is where things started to get weird. From the very moment that this Paladin-Druid relationship started, our DM started to narrate things and make lore that would cause the Druid to be upset with the Paladin. NPCs from the paladin's religious order would desecrate the Druids temples. He revealed new lore about how the paladin's religious order suppressed the Druid's religion for thousands of years in ancient past, and essentially did everything possible to cause the druid to be upset with the paladin. Even taking agency away from his character, and making the Paladin do straight up evil things when that player was absent from a session. It got to the point where the Paladin wrote a long angry forum post about all the things the DM had done, showing screenshots of private messages between him and the DM, where he had asked the DM nicely to not railroad a breakup between their characters. The DM argued that he was trying to make a dramatic story of forbidden lovers trying to overcome the expectations/histories of their religious orders, and that the Paladin was taking things too seriously, the Paladin argued that the DM was jealous of the In-character relationship, and couldn't keep his feelings separate from the game. The Paladin was eventually kicked from the game, and that PC turned into a BBEG NPC shortly thereafter. I ask thee, humble Supreme Crit, who was in the right here? Was our paladin not appreciating the story the DM claimed he was weaving? Or was the DM going too far and trying to force players to RP how he wanted them?

Stephen Burns

To the most honorable justices and Jake. I bring you the case of the Foggy Troll. I play a druid in an online campaign. The party was exploring an "abandoned" ship wreck in an artic setting. Our plan was to go in steathily. The DM had us make athletic checks to climb up on to the deck of the large ship. Most of the party made it up with no issue, leaving myself and the Warlock still on the ground. The Warlock attempts to climb up before me, but fails spectacularly and falls to the ground loudly. This alerted a Troll within the ship to start stomping out to the deck. The DM noted that the party members on the deck of the ship did not have cover from the Troll. So, I cast Fog Cloud to give them cover. I thought this was a smart play as it had previously been established that fog is common in the artic setting and we were trying to be stealthy. The Wizard/Bard PC seemed annoyed because he wasn't able to see through the Fog Cloud. The Ranger ended up casting Prestidigitation producing a goat bleat in the distance to lure the Troll off. In character, the Wizard/Bard told me to let him know when I would be casting Fog Cloud in the future. I don't think I should have to ask another PC's permission to cast spells, but I also understand not wanting to be essentially blinded. So, I await your judgement. Was my Fog Cloud usage smart gameplay or did I hinder my party?

Liz

To the honorable 2 crew, I bring you the case of the flirty tiefling, I am playing a game with some friends and there is this tiefling rogue who just is constantly "are they hot?" And obsessively flirting with npcs all the time. Which is annoying and has been taking away from the plot. But then she proceeds to flirt (& fall in love) with my characters dad (who caused a lot trauma to my character, a twilight cleric/circle of stars druid aka the only healer) so when push came to shove and she died trying to save my dad I didn't resurrect her. She's mad, the dms mad (he's her gf), but everyone else agrees with me, should I have saved her? I throw myself on the mercy of the court

Dylan C

I beseech the high crit court as I ask for forgiveness as a bad baby DM. I have a player who recently did a really cool move when fighting skulks who are invisible monsters and you can only see their reflection. I play with insperation and the cleric goblin cast create water on the ground making it so that all the skulks could be seen. I didn't give the player insperation when I should have! The reason I didn't was because not 2 minutes earlier, the cleric was arguing with me about mechanics that I made. Please absolve me from this petty moment of mine!

Dominique Bautista

To the highly revered judges and the oft, and rightly so, unnoticed bailiff I present the case of the brain eating player. A few weeks ago, my friends and I started our first game of DnD. Our DM has more experience than the rest of us, but doesn’t have that much so he lets us play things pretty loose. During one session, we ended up in a castle full of these bandits who had somehow gotten their hands on some bad magic that awakened powers within them and caused them to glow and become more powerful, but also had driven them mad. One of my friends was playing a gnome who used to be a former porn star named Hugh G. Rection, whose quest was to fix his broken member, took it upon himself to start eating their brains in an attempt to fix this. We pleaded with him to stop eating brains and he said we were punishing him for playing the way he wanted to but this was not the first in a series of overly chaotic actions he’d taken. Were we wrong to tell him to stop wreaking so much chaos or should he be promptly punished by having his brain poked, Hannibal lector style? I humbly await your judgement

Birthday Girl Cara

May it please the justices in their high chairs and the bailiff in his tiny baby stool for babies, I present the case of the protagonist paladin. I DM for a group of new players who have all been really excited about starting a proper home campaign. We played a couple one shots to get them used to the rules etc and we finally had our first session of the real story. One of my players introduces their character, a paladin who is the child of the King, being chased by the forces of evil which only they can stop. I tried to find a middle ground between letting them having their character while also letting them know that this is a collaborative story telling experience, so I offered the caviat that their kingdom is on another plane and though that stuff might not impact our plane right now, it *could* some time later in the campaign. They were completely bummed out and bailed on the whole character, opting instead to basically not have a backstory. Gracious judges and also Jack, I ask, was I being a major buzz kill? Or was my fear that the other players might be relegated to sidekicks justified? If I must be punished, I opt to be croissanted or blasted by grandma in leu of serving time

Ismar Bekir

To the honorable justices and equally honorable bailiff, I present to you the case of the Ellusive, Decapitating Door-Shield. I am a DM for a game set as the third campaign in this world-setting and am blessed with wonderful friends who are always happy to explore this creation. One of my players, a Paladin/Spiritual wanderer with a wisp familiar, was gifted a magical key from his mentor that can fit in any door (with an enclosed space behind it) and open into a null-space closet, effectively granting a key of holding. The Paladin commissioned a custom shield that has a shallow frame away from the metal with a wooden door affixed to it on hinges to always have access to said space. Amidst the action, he had the idea to throw the shield, door-open, on top of an enemies head and close the door to decapitate them. I said they'd need to make a hell of a strength check to sever a humanoid head from its shoulders by slamming it shut as the null-space and mechanics of the door don't dispel until the door is shut and key turned.  I argued that for this to work, some sort of irising appature-style door would work better, even moreso if it was made of blades or sharpened edges and even then the mechanic of the key would be rendered moot as the goal was to decapitate. This conversation has come around a few times and I wonder if I should have given the Paladin a more satisfying answer. I try to avoid the "would they do this?" morality question as I like the players to have room for gray areas and decisions. Sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things. The mechanics of the key aside, I know how much player imagination and use of item can elevate game and role play, but this seems a little bit of a leap for me.

Linsey

Dearest and most honorable Crit Justices, and bumbling, cute fool Bae-liff Jake, I present to you the case of the Session One TPK. This fall, our friend invited us to a semi-home brewed campaign he created and wanted to DM for our group of friends and a few others. This was his first time DMing, and the party was evenly filled with new and experienced players. On the first night we get the idea to go to the local crypt. While searching the area, I roll a Nat 20 on an investigation check and our DM tells us there is a hidden entrance in the room, which we of course check out (he later tells us there is no way he’d let us find that, outside a Crit). When we enter, a very clearly neutral guardian of the chamber informs us we cannot pass, and most of the party tries to get information out of it. My character instead opts to throw a fireball at the guardian and it proceeds to take 4 ATTACKS, insta-killing the two members of our party I had just met, before inevitably taking us all down. We ended the session there, with everyone blaming me and thinking about creating new characters before the next session (and me sending a lot of apology texts). The new players were especially confused. At session 2, our DM informs us that our PCs have respawned outside of the crypt and we are revealed to be predestined heroes. Should I have taken the blame for the TPK, or should the DM pay for my therapy after inflicting the trauma of immediately killing all my friends and two people I just met? I humbly await your reasoned judgment. P.S. The campaign has been going great since, but the scars of the first night definitely linger.

Connor Raftery

Hey judges and the other guy, I’ve got a case of DM v. Shouting party. As I started combat during my regularly scheduled game and was going through the arduous task of collecting, one of my players got very excited about their roll. Collecting and sorting initiative is a pain, so once I had all the initiative numbers I tuned out the voices of my players while I did the extremely difficult math of “which number is higher than the other” and created the order of combat. Our party’s monk got an exceptionally high score on initiative. Their excitement led them to assume that they went first in combat (they did, they got like 15 higher than the second person. This point is irrelevant in my mind) They rolled their attacks while I was creating the list and got a nat 20 on one of them. I had missed them saying anything, so when I finished initiative i told the monk to go ahead and take their turn. They instead just told me how hard they crit for. Dice already rolled, I had no clue how they got there. When they explained it to me, I told them that dice rolled before initiative is done don’t count, and the party shouted me down saying I had to “respect the 20” even though it was done out of turn and without prompting. I am making this case to stop players from abusing distracted DM’s who are doing the most extreme task of kindergarten level math, and set a precedent that dice have got to be rolled when the DM is ready, not when ever the players want. Thank you

Cheddar Whizard

To our Most Admirable Judges of Unshakeable Ethics and also Shady Jake, I humbly present the John Wick Scenario. I was a player in a campaign that featured over 15 players. The DM was an absolute madman who managed several overlapping storylines across multiple weekly games. I played with a few different groups, so I created my character as a roaming bounty hunter who could dip in and out of the major storylines. Every session was a blast, and over the 5 year run of the game, I never had a complaint about the DM, the story, or the other players. Except for Bargo. Bargo's player was a wildcard at the table, which I usually found amusing. That changed when Bargo decided to blow up a criminal stronghold where a number of hostages were being held-- including my in-game companion, a hound that had been by my character's side for four of the five years we played. The DM made rolls in front of the table for casualties, and none of the hostages made it. Many at the table spoke up against the action, and the DM left it up to me. I chose to respect the rolls, but I spent the next few months building up the resources to take my revenge. At the climax of Bargo's individual storyline, my character made an appearance just as Bargo achieved his campaign-long goal. No monologuing, no epic battle. I simply used a DM approved ritual to hurl both myself and Bargo into the deepest levels of the Abyss. Bargo failed his save, and our stories were over. Noble justices, I ask: was my reaction excessive, or was my single-minded quest for revenge justified?

Greg Luca

May my pain please the divinely honourable judges Murphy, Axeford, and Tanner, as well as that weird guy who lives with Jill and Tucker … Jack? I bring to the court the case of an unwanted resurrection. This session happened years ago when we were just learning. I was playing a dwarves Beverly as my first ever character. On a mountaintop duel against a dragon my PC sacrificed himself so the other teammates could kill it. And I was happy with that! But our chaotic evil cleric used a divine intervention attempting to sell my soul to his evil god so I could be revived. And it worked! I protested saying “He’d rather DIE than be evil” but our DM said that “The die don’t lie”, and I was forced to come back and be evil, having to find my way back to the light but we never got that far. Now I prostrate myself in front of your legal and theological genius to give a punishment so righteous and true to me, for being a big baby, or my dm and cleric, for forcing me to be something I never wanted to become. Thank you honourable court and may butterfinger BB’s keep you filled always.

Sean L Byrne

To the right honourable (with a u) Supreme Crit Justices and the sometimes lowly serf, beggar parasite bailiff, sometimes highly Lord Royal parasite bailiff, Jake. About three years ago I was getting very deep into naddpod and Dimension 20 and wanted desperately to play D&D. Problem was- I didn't know anyone who played! Thankfully I was able to find a group of people on Meetup.com who were already putting a game together, and they agreed to add me last-minute. I was excited, and put together my character and my backstory in an email chain with the group. However- soon after disaster struck. On March 11th the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and since the group planned to meet in person, I no longer felt comfortable doing so. Plus, I was living in L.A. and decided to drive back to Texas to live with family for a few months to ride out what I thought would be a short lockdown. So, I decided to tell a little white lie and inform the rest of the party that I had a family emergency back home in Texas and that I would need to head out there for a time, and thus would no longer be able to participate. The DM flew off the handle at this news- accusing me of wasting their time, and lying about my reasons for backing out! I thought this was a huge overreaction, considering I was added last-minute to begin with! Clearly I wasn't essential to the group's dynamic since they were originally going to play without me! I responded angrily to this tongue-lashing, and the DM said I turned out to be a real psycho and he was glad I would not be joining them. So I ask- was I right to decide to back out last minute? Was I right to tell a vague white lie to do it? Was the DM right to lose his shit at me? I humbly submit myself to the mercy of the Crit.

Tim S.

To the charitable crit justices and their ward James, I humbly present the case of the most unceremoniously ignored character death of all time... by flavored jello. We had a brilliant plan to Chewbacca-style present our rogue in chains to the local warlord so that we could get friendly with her and the rogue could escape and find secrets and dirt on her. The plan worked perfectly, and the barbarian was allowed to throw the rogue in the pit-like dungeon of the keep before returning to the audience chamber where the rest of the party waited. This would have been great, except they both failed their perception checks to notice that the floor was a Gelatinous Cube in hiding. After some truly dismal rolls, the rogue died unceremoniously over multiple rounds while the rest of us sweated bullets role-playing with the warlord. The DM tried to save him by letting the Bag of Beans the rogue held fall out of his pocket to see if a spilled bean could help, but the dice dictated that a geyser of fruit juice erupted from the bean rather than anything helpful, resulting in a flavored gelatinous cube with a suspended corpse like some kind of vintage jello. I ask the crit justices: What should have been done? Should we have meta-knowledged our way to saving the rogue? I prostrate myself for your justice as you see fit. Extra Evidence: The DM tried to help more by letting my character (a cleric) roll a religion check for divine inspiration that our rogue was in trouble, but I rolled terribly on that as well.

Charles

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and also that guy who sometimes sells his sister’s pube oils, I bring to you the case of the Rogue Healing Potions. I was DMing a campaign for a relatively small party and, as such, they didn’t have a full time dedicated healer. To help balance this, I introduced a magical jar that would fill with 1d6 worth of healing potions once per long rest. Immediately the party Rogue, Keke, stole the jar from the Paladen, Grievance Cane, with a nat 20 sleight of hand. Everyday Keke proceeded to pour out the potion on any random thing she came across, even when I asked if she was sure she wanted to. Needless to say, this happened the day of the fight with the BBEG. At an important moment in the battle, Keke went to give a potion to Grievance (who was knocked out). I told her that unfortunately she had used all of that days recharges on a house plant that she thought “could use some electrolytes.” Grievance ended up failing his death saves but was brought back later with Reincarnate, though he changed from an Elf to a Gnome. The campaign ended well but the party still insists I was too strict on counting Keke’s “joke” use of the potions. I put it to you dear Judges, was this fair of me or was I too much of a hardass when I counted a mention of using the potions for dumb purposes?

Matthew R

Benevolent supreme crit justices and the amazing bailiff! I beg for your ruling. A group of friends and I are having scheduling issues, the ever present issue for D&D players. One friend in particular states they are dedicated to playing but consistently cancels last minute or just doesn’t show. When the we, the players, spoke to the problem player, they said they would make more of an effort but nothing has changed. Those of us who are ready to play spoke with the DM about playing without the other player but the DM won’t do anything. He says his story depends on each of us. How can we convince our DM to push forward and allow the problem player to drop in when they are truly available?

Bebs

I present the case of “The Ring that Broke Up the Party” A few years ago I played my first campaign of DnD, and also happened to DM. The campaign was going smooth, except for one player, who kept running to different towns than the rest of the party and murdering civilians. The whole party was starting to get annoyed, so I homebrewed a set of rings whose wearers can’t be more than 200 feet apart or they take damage, and had a merchant give it to them. This caused an UPROAR with some members, who said that it was a real item and was worth way more than they got it for. I said “Well it’s just not worth that much in this universe” which did not settle the dispute and ended with the Problem Player narrating that he kept walking with the ring on until he died. And then a player continued to yell at me and I just told him to DM then. He did and copied my story line and the party broke up after 2 sessions. I ASK THEE was i wrong to give my players expensive rings for cheap? Should I not have tried to contain the player to the rest of the party?

William Martin

Dear daddy supreme judges, Axford, Caldwell, and Murphy and their sweet little lap dog Jake I present my humble case for your special ears: My long time friends and I were playing in an all dwarf campaign in a world where we were the only dwarfs. In this world around 25% of the npcs we encountered were super racist towards dwarfs and straight up aggressive towards us. As a party we would never let it go and always fight the racist npcs. As a result we burnt down two towns and never got to the campaign the dm wanted to run. The campaign ended after a couple of sessions and we haven’t been able to play together since. I should note the party only wanted to have a simple bar fight but the DM would always raise the stakes leading to the town burning down. Were we in the wrong to fight these NPCs or should we have been more willing to go with the DMs story?

Mackenzie DeMello

To the overwhelming justices Murphy, Axeford, and Tanner, and the adequately whelming Bailiff Jake, I present a complication contrary to contemporary conundrums: I have too many players! About a year ago, I started a campaign with 8 of my friends. This was my first time really DMing, and their first time playing. I knew it was a lot, but the 9 of us were all friends, and it would have felt like intentionally excluding people if I didn't invite them. Things started out fine, being newer players, they didn't know the full extent of what they could do, and I could guide them smoothly. However, as their skills have grown, so too has their creativity and hunger for more, and I simply can't keep up. Combats require extensive planning to make sure everyone has something interesting to do, and Social encounters and puzzles take forever, as with 8 people, there's 16 things that people want to ask at once. I've mentioned this difficulty to them, but with no real solution. I don't want to pick and choose my friends, and slaughtering them in combat feels cruel, as they would know their death means an exit from the campaign. Even more, a separate friend group wants to start a campaign too! I'd love to DM for them, as it would be a much more manageable group size of 3 players, plus, they're a little more like-minded as a group, which helps planning, but I don't want to leave my other friends who are having fun in the dust. And so, I come to the court for answers, has my avarice and greed for D&D taken me too far? Should my players share the burden of my misdeeds, or must I carry this weight myself? I humbly await your judgement (A touch of additional context: the 8 player campaign is currently in the midsts a battle with a powerful enchantress, her entourage of assassins, legion of townsfolk turned statue warriors, and a (literally) petrifying Lazer turret at the center of a space-bending hedge maze. It was designed to be a tough, but winnable encounter with the right tactics, though some of my players are worried that this encounter is meant to cull their numbers, and seem unconvinced of my statements otherwise.) (PS, it was a blast seeing the court in Boston)

Eric Wills

May it please the court and bailiff. I bring the case of science vs magic. I run a campaign of extremely well educated friends and family, including a doctor and a nurse. After some Con fails, their characters became diseased by an exploding fungus and had 8 hours to find a cure or they would die. They tried to convince me that the spell “purify food and drink” should cure them of all disease. I said no. They continued to argue with me about the blood brain barrier… blah blah blah science stuff. I continued to resist but I allowed an arcana/medicine check to try and cast the spell in a way that was not intended. They failed miserably but continued to argue with me and the results of the dice. Nobody ended up dying from this encounter but the trend of real life science trumps magic logic continues in the campaign. Should I go back to school in order to better implement science in the fantasy rpg? I humbly await your verdict…

Kneeburgers

To the equally honorable judges and bailiff, I present the case of the Overly Attractive NPCs. I’m the DM for a group of friends + my partner playing a Strixhaven campaign. 3 of the players are experienced and 2 are new, but I know them all very well. I wanted my players to feel super engaged in the world right away, so using what I know about them all I created NPCs that I knew would be irresistible to each of them, either based on physical attractiveness or personality traits. The problem is that this worked too well— the players spend most role-playing time interacting with these NPCs, and then go in quests with their adventuring party almost as a default expectation. The player characters don’t have emotional ties to each other, and in some cases just plainly distrust each other. I’m glad I know my friends well enough to create NPCs that they’ll fall for, but did my hubris mean I didn’t offer them the opportunity to mesh as a group? I humbly throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Matthew R

To the supreme for judges and bailiff, I present the case of the orphan murdering player. A while back, my partner and I were playing in a terrible campaign that we eventually quit. One of the players had a character that focused on PvP and intraparty conflict. When the character betrayed the party to the BBEG, we let him die during a more difficult combat. The player was mad but made a new character and kept playing. His first session as the new character, he came back abrasive as ever and later tried to murder an orphaned child we were escorting back to a distant family member. Our party decided to kill him in order to protect the orphan and the player threw a fit saying, “it’s what my character would do!” Was this the right thing to do or should we have allowed the character explain why he was trying to murder a defenseless child?

Jon Poderdunk

I plead before thee, A court unlike any other! Help solve this mystery, Who was Leafy’s Mother? My friends and I were D&D first timers, with myself in the (hot) DM chair. Before even beginning, an impasse arose between a player and I. During character creation, one of my players wanted to be a Druid, cool I read about that, no problem. He added that his Druid, Leafy, was half human half bear. I told him no, and he rebutted that I told him he could do anything in D&D, which I do not deny. I counter-offered that Leafy could think he was half bear, have been raised by bears even, but he declined. I went on to propose that he could be the result of some twisted sorcerers experiments, which I felt satisfied the half bear condition in a practical way, however in response my player declared that Leafy’s mother would be a bear “all natural” or no Leafy. This was years ago and I don’t remember my exact ruling, but I remember keeping Leafy’s parentage vague and it being a source of major contention. So I come to you seeking a ruling to uncover, the long lost identity of Leafy’s mother.

tarvis frogfriend

To the illustrious justices and baliff Jake/John, who either way gets a hug from me because he either deserves one/needs one depending on how the justices decided to treat him this week. May it please the court, I present the case of the OGL Apocalypse. My friends and I had been playing a home game for about half a year, with an amazing set of narratives all starting to come together. We took a break over the holiday season but were really excited to get back into it. A week before our planned session we had a voice chat with the DM who floated the idea of changing systems from 5e to Pathfinder 2e. The players all voted against it because of the amount of rules we'd need to learn and potential game bloat (we are avid RPers and it's like herding cats to get us anywhere). The morning after the meeting we got a message that she was vetoing our vote and hard switching, citing the unethical OGL as the reason for the change. We said we did not appreciate a bait-and-switch vote meeting and our concerns still existed, and ultimately we had everything needed rules-wise to finish the campaign (most of it was her homebrew anyway). She rebutted that any resistance was, quote: "feels like the DM is not allowed to have fun at their own game", which raised some suspicions. She also kept emphasizing she wasn't forcing us, but only offered quitting the game as an alternative. Later, our suspicions were confirmed that it wasn't just the OGL. She said 5e wasn't flexible enough of a system and 2e, which she tried out over our break, was just going to be better, despite the fact we were already having a blast. We were receptive to her, knowing a DM who didn't like the rules wouldn't be able to run the game. Half of us built out something workable in 2e RAW and were trying to help the others. When translation didn't work well, we tried to see if we could compromise between the rulesets, given what she was pitching was going to fundamentally change half our party into something different from our concepts. The DM refused and insisted we should just do things the way Pathfinder laid out and that we were using our stories as an excuse to be munchkins, which was the first of some regretful things the DM called us, and long story short our campaign went from Breaking Bad epic to Firefly cancelled. Now while I was admittedly open to the change being a forever DM, I stand with my players as I did ultimately side with them because I just didn't see a point continuing the game without even one of their characters as our stories were inextricably intertwined. Was our DM right to force us to change rulesets mid-campaign with 0 compromise? I humbly await your judgement and if need be, sentencing with my fellow players.

Scrublord

To the highly esteemed and powerful justices as well as the cheeky bailiff, I bring you the case of The Eight Hour Whomping. I'm a new player and I recently joined a campaign as a fill in to replace some players who left the group for unknown reasons, but now it's pretty apparent why. I was to start at level 16 and I was told to play as a rogue, to which I obliged. Fast forward to our final session of the campaign and we're squaring off against a lich. Up until this point my DM had been BSing reasons to prevent me from using sneak attack or other class features at nauseum, but little did I know it was about to get much worse. As the fight kicked off, I hid to set up my sneak attack and rolled a 35. He obviously couldn't find me, so he had the lich use detect magic to sense my weaponry and by extension me. Now, the wording of detect magic states that you must be able to see a creature or item to see the aura around it and I pointed that out. He then proceeded to simply say "yeah, we're not dealing with that shit" and ruled it worked anyways. From that point on, he proceeded to paralyze me with a DC 25 con save for the rest of the session, which was impossible for me to hit, repeating the attack the moment it wore off. This continued for the next 7 or so hours with me simply sitting there doing nothing. I ask you this: was I wronged in being unable to hide and forced to sit out an entire session because he hated dealing with a rogue I was forced to play?

Skillful Ferret

If it would please the judges on high, will the bailiff down low please recount the tale of the Torn Tabaxi, While playing my last session (though only the 3rd session) due to leaving for a deployment the other characters in the party decided to plan to betray our mission and become an evil party so they role played a distraction for my character who was a lawful good Paladin. I had offered to play a Lawful Evil Cleric as well, but the other players told me to play the Paladin. Thus, I had to spend the entire session pretending to be alone in another room. Then at the very end, to roleplay my character out of the session I took the artifact from our NPC priest to complete the mission without putting the others in danger. Which I thought would let the party have an excuse to quit the mission since they wanted to switch to being an evil party. I found out that during the next session they caught up to my character who had sacrificed himself using the artifact to revive a village that was destroyed (dm choice) which I thought was cool, but the remaining players decided to mutilate my character’s corpse to remove the artifact that I had apparently swallowed, in order to sell it. Am I right to be bothered by that despite being out of the game? Note the DM quit the campaign ~10 sessions later due losing interest in the character’s antics.

Mythic_Robyn

To the esteemed Judges of the supreme Crit, their possible corruption non-withstanding and the much less corrupt and yet still equally guilty bailiff Jake. May I present the case of the unclear twined spell. While discussing some of the combo's our group has the idea of a Sorcerer using Twinned Spell on Enlarge/Reduce or haste was brought up. We argued for several minutes (A common occurrence and part of our fun). Some of us said no, since the spell is an augment and arguably targets more than one creature, but countering that we have that the spell itself only targets one creature. I and our current main DM said yes, our secondary DM and another player say no. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that it does work however, recent thought have swayed some of us back to our original thoughts. Such as Haste, Hold Person or Hold Monster at their base levels and other such cases. As a minor creation goddess I humbly await your possible answer on this matter. Thank you.

Mary Rezin

May it please the wonderful and honorable judges, and howdy to bailiff Jake, who I suppose can be pleased or not pleased. I used to play in a campaign where I never felt like the party were the heroes. During combats either the DM would have multiple NPCs as a part of the fight, or we got our asses handed to us and would get subsequently captured, or the DM would have NPCs show up to help us. I know the DM was a writer, and sometimes to me it felt like we were more Side characters in her story, rather than being able to tell a story collaboratively (for example, she had one NPC that showed up in every campaign, the "Tasha" or "Xanathar" of the homebrew source book she was writing). I spoke with the DM about it once, and got told she was "breaking us down and she would build us back up", so we could feel more like Heroes later. But after a few months, nothing changed, and when I spoke to her about again, she said that she didn't really understand the issue I was having, and that DMs having fun is important too.  I no longer play with that DM, but I have always wondered: was I wrong to want to feel like my party and I were the heroes? I await your ruling, ready to dole out any judgement that may fall on me.

Fighting Favorites

DnD Court To the dignified judges and the bailiff whom can be described by the fickle adjectives of the judges choosing. I present the case of the Time-out Bard. I had been sitting on a build that I had wanted to try out for a campaign that started at level 7. At level ten I created a bard that had Find Greater Steed and Haste as their magical secrets spells. My Pegasus has a base flying speed of 90, with haste is doubled to 180 and with dash actions can move about 540 feet per round. I gave my Goliath bard expertise in athletics, and wanted to spend my actions grappling opponents then flying them 250 feet away putting them in “time out”. The rest of my party loved the idea and found it really fun, but my DM ruled that I can’t do it because it breaks the game and found a specific quora post that said you can’t grapple anyone while mounted. Am I allowed to put the bad guys in time out? Or is my DM right to rule against this. I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Scrotie Pippin

To the well mannered judges and the bailiff who’s conduct resembles that of toddler at the adult table during a family get together. I present a simple question; My player argues as a lightfoot halfling, he may hide or conceal himself behind a larger player. He argued, successfully, that hiding is concealment. Therefor by RAW on total cover he should have total cover behind his colleagues. Help. I cant hit this halfling. Further more boring evidence bellow. Rules as written state that partial cover may be a creature. Setting president for creatures being cover. Total cover is described as: A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.

Will

Honorable justices and tangy bailiff, I present to you a DM Most Foul. In a campaign of all new players and DM as well, our party came upon a Shrine of Luck. We were intrigued and each one of us place an offering on the altar. When the offerings vanished, our curiosity got the better of us so we all lept on the altar and teleported away. This is where the whimsy ends. We found ourselves in a dark room with what seemed to be a child captive and some cultists. We asked what was going on and demanded the cultists to let the child go. The cultists responded by stabbing us. So we killed them all and freed the child. The child seemed upset but incoherent as we led them to freedom. We tried to figure out what was wrong over and over again but eventually gave up and brought the child out of the house. The DM then said the child exploded as they came in contact with the sun. We were shocked and furious as the DM seemed to enjoy our mistake and scolded us for not realizing the child was ALLERGIC TO THE SUN and that the cultists were their family trying to protect them. We argued we made good faith efforts to peacefully solve the problem. Justices, were we careless murderers or was the DM a maniac? PS: We are no longer friends with the DM.

Ayush Kadel

To the honorable justices Axeford Tanner and Murphy; and their muscly (thicc of quad, calf and shaft) bailiff Herwitz. I bring forth the case of the blazed barb. I’ve been GMing for my friends for over a year now, and we have a routine where everyone brings in an inebriant to share with the group. Up until recently this wasn't an issue, however one of my adventures has began generously proving us with a plant that is not so legal where I am from. My problem is not the legality but rather the effect is had on my players, specifically our orcish barb. We typically meet once a month and do a 6-8 hour sesh with breaks inbetween. by the end of our sessions everyone is pooped and ready for bed; however, the introduction of this herb has caused our barbarian to pass out within 4 hours for the past two sessions. The other adventures are more experienced with the herb and dont feel the effects as strongly; they have mentioned our tuckered out tank to me but dont seem bothered by it. We have another sesh planned for this weekend, and our barb has texted me asking if he is ruining our game by slumping halfway though. I havent had the heart to replay; on one hand losing our barb during the raising action and climax of our session does leave a sour taste in my mouth. On the other, he is my friend and I feel weird asking him to stop smoking when the other player and I will be. Typically if there is combat one of the other players will step in and take over, However, during social encounters we just play without the barb. My question for the bench is: Should I tell my player “thou shall not cheef” or, should I puff puff pass on this confrontation?

Scottee

I prostrate myself before the sublime, sumptuous judges and the earthy, Californian jailiff Bake. I present 🎁 you with one question: was it wrong of me to level up my party mid-fight? I'm running a darker campaign, concluding the first arc in which my players are fighting a hag coven, with the twist that all 3 must be killed in the same round or they revive with 1 hp. Ladies of the Wood from the Witcher soundtrack is playing, plant minions are swarming, there's a storm and they're fighting on top of a ruined mansion's roof, all's good. My 4 players are in serious trouble and at the end of round 3, 3 of them are down and 2 hags have been killed once. I narrate what I think is a really fun moment of a blessing gained from an earlier NPC kicking in and each of them gaining a level at the top of the round, waking up each of my downed PCs, each with a fun new level 7 ability and the hp they rolled. It was still a tough fight but everyone loved it. ...except the PC who was still conscious, who later said he didn't like that the team's "poor tactics" had been rewarded with a "deus ex machina." Also disliked the hags' revival mechanic. He also didn't like that they only had a 10 minute break to choose their new class level, in case they wanted to multiclass. I think he's being a huge sourpuss and I always planned on a level up at the end of round 3, but was it unfair to any players, or should I have done a standard post fight level up? I remain prostrate before you!

Luke G

‘Sup Judges, Bailiff. I present the mystery of the secret game. I was DMing a one shot on Discord for a couple of players from our main game since it had been a while since we played. We were all chatting and catching up before the game started, and ‘player one’ started telling an anecdote about a game i didn’t recognise. Before i could saying anything, player 2’s eyes widened and they started shaking their head, seeming desperate to get player one to stop talking. Player 1 quickly changed the subject. Afterwards i point blank asked player 2 if there was a secret game going on behind my back. They said no, and reassured me that what i saw was them shooing away their partner who was trying to distract them off screen. To this day, I’m unsure of the truth. However, after doing a little self reflection i realised that i maybe havent always been the easiest to play with, and a secret game to exclude ‘that one player’ is maybe somewhat understandable. Judges, should i be offended? Should i let people have their fun even if im not involved?

Trenton Corbett

May it please the honorable crit justices and tickle the bailiff. I was in an Icewind Dale campaign setting and my character fell into an icy river. When I got out I thought everything would be ok becasue I could use prestidigitation to dry my clothes. However, my Dm said that in order to do this I’d have to take them all off and squeeze them into 1 cubic foot. I argued that the spell didn’t need to be read that literally, but inevitably gave in to my Dm becasue the visual image of the scene was so funny. Should my character have been able to dry his clothes without having to take them all off? Or did my character deserve to go to bed cold? I await your verdict

Kelley40k

Dear divine trine and Pope jake, i came to you now to bear my soul for salvation or damnation. A couple months ago i was playing online in the chiper system (similar to 5e but not quite) doing an 80's summer camp slasher one shot. I played the arch-typical bullied nerd named Jimmy Brockhollow. Near the end of the one shot we discovered that a witch had resurrected her drowned child to seek vengeance on the campers and counselors. So naturally we go to confront her and put an end to it. During said battle the witch cast a spell giving her shadowy evil spirts to attack us. We were slowly losing and coming to the end of the one shot time wise. So i made a big play i grabbed the witchs spell book and attempted to use the same spell.This is where my soul was corrupted. we were coming to the end of the one shot and the DM said this was a big role that could determine whether we were able to kill the witch or if we failed and would be killed ourselves. He asked for a high dc roll so i clicked to rolling a 2. However as i went to click my other party member playing the popular girl asked the DM if there was anything she could do to assist. The DM had a quick chat on how she might like to help and had her roll. She unfortunately failed, the DM then asked me to make my roll. My 2 had gone unnoticed in the other conversation in this moment i caved and rolled again getting a Nat 20. Everyone was ecstatic, we defeated the witch and Jimmy not only was able to turn the spell against the witch but also impressed the shadowy spirts to come work for him. This roll has haunted my steps, did dice christ grant me salvation for Jimmy and the others or did the dice devil exchange my soul for a nat 20? P.S I should also say that the other player playing the popular girl was so hyped by the ending she drew a lil comic strip of Jimmy and her character in the future working together to hunt down a chupacabra and other cryptids. Also i am now dating that player. Who has said how sick it was to get a nat 20 for the final role of the game.

Alex S

May it please the court and the percipient baliff, may I present the case of the half cooked homebrew: Our group is near the end of the Curse of Strahd campaign in which the DM had implemented some brutal homebrew rules, including a falling rule that states if you take fall damage equal to your constitution score, you drop to 0 HP, and if you double it, you are dead. While exploring the vampire's castle, we encountered a hazard at the top of a tower. After casting some fun weather magic and knocking numerous enemies to the floor far below, my elf tempest cleric failed a dexterity save and plummeted over 100 feet to his own death - or so I thought. The DM said that although I had just killed numerous NPC's using the falling rules he implemented, I would not be held to the same effect, and to simply roll the falling damage. I argued briefly, and we settled on rolling on a grievous injury table instead. This led to my elf landing on a glaive, severing his arm. Justices, should my DM have splattered my elf, or was he correct to spare his life? Thank you.

Crim Rogers

Hello, Jake and Friends. I barbarian. I hit things hard. Wizard tell me think before hit. I hit wizard. I do bad? Please advise

Z Juhn

Dear the honorable Supreme Crit Justice and that guy who knows Ben Schwartz. I bring you the case of the ruined first encounter. When I was in middle school, there was a DND club that was holding a day to try and invite new players. It sounded interesting so I went and tried to play, sitting down at a table with one other friend and a bunch of veterans. Immediately I was told, because I showed interest in playing a Barbarian, that I had to name my character "Pickles," as it was a tradition of the people playing. I did not want to name my character Pickles, but eventually went along with it because I was new and did not want to stand up to these older players. The one shot we did saw us fighting off bandits from a city in the trees, during which I missed all my attacks, and did not have any of the mechanics of the game explained to me. The DM even stopped me from stopping another player, despite the fact they were going to murder someone I didn't want to die. Justices, was I wronged? This experience put me off from DND for a long time, but I worry that was me just being butt hurt about being the newbie at an older table. I submit myself and the strangers from middle school to your honorable judgement.

Jac Gibson

I write this to the church of dice christ and the cardinals of the cloth. I come to with a shameful dice christ confession. Whilst in the middle of an epic duel between my level 5 party and an adult blue dragon I committed the ultimate sin. While downed I pretended to roll a nat 20 to come back to life. I ended slaying the beast in that turn too. In my defense it was my friends first dnd campaign and we were about to tpk. I also ended bringing my falled party members back to life with a clutch twinned revifiy and we continued on with the game but I have lived with the guilt of my sin every since. Since then we have had many great adventurers and recently my divine soul Sorcerer died after an epic sacrifice but I don't feel like that is enough. I throw myself at your mercy.

Xanian Jamfalcon

May it please the wily Justices and the sleek and dangerous Balif, I present the case of Too Many Tigers. Years ago in the misty past of Pathfinder 1e, our low level party was ambushed on the road by a "pack" of 6 or so Tigers. We fought hard but my Goblin Rogue "Babineax Daggers" was cruelly pounced on, tripped, raked and killed in such a manner that he could not be saved. My DM played it by the book, which I respect, and it was all in good fun, becoming an inside joke for our group too this day, but my issue comes with the circumstances. I argued that Tigers don't hunt in packs and wouldn't attack several armed adventures riding a wagon down the road under any circumstances. Was my DM wrong to throw such efficient predators in our path? Should he have let me play my goblin's twin sister "Babinette"? How many Tigers is too Many Tigers? I await your judgment.

Laney Bird

To the Church of Dice Christ I have a nomination for Dicely GM Sainthood. My partner runs 3 campaigns (that have been ongoing for several years) that all take place in the same homebrewed world. The world is massive and the campaigns all take place at different points in time, and yet he still has intertwined them all together in little ways to create Easter eggs, that only I, as the sole person who plays in all 3 campaigns, ever get to see. This amount of love and dedication to his characters and world is a wonderful thing and while I compliment him after every session, I do not feel it is enough recognition for the work he does. So I humbly bring this request for canonization to the Church, thank you for your consideration. May Dice Christ Bless us all.

Evan Sherlock-Hubbard

To the beautifully-feathered Cardinals Murphy, Axeford and Tanner, and to the Yankee-Candleboy Jake: I must confess that I let jealousy cause a TPK in my first Campaign. We played 3.5e in my early College years, and I was the big dumb fighter for my first-ever character. I was also the party loot manager, as I was the only one who still had a pack horse alive at that point in the game, due to my fighter's habit of taking any found swords and strapping them to the horse (named Sword-Horse), which provided him a form of armour. My DM described a beautiful enchanted standing mirror made of dark glass, as part of a post-boss loot cache. I was left behind to tally and write down the loot we'd gotten, and, bored since the others had continued exploring further down, I described tossing my axe through the mirror. It smashed, and my DM gleefully rolled for a random magical effect and the target of that effect. Effect - The target is transformed into the race of the next-nearest creature. Target - The creature within a radius with the highest intelligence score. Long story short, Sword-Horse had a higher intelligence score than my fighter and was transformed to be human, and my DM ruled that since he was still covered in martial weapons and had travelled closest with me of anyone, he would be rolled as a fighter. With the DM controlling my beloved Sword-Horse with a customer type of attack based on being thoroughly covered by weapons, it quickly over the next few sessions became apparent that Sword Horse was a far better fighter than I was. My beloved horse had become my nude rival, and in the next boss battle that occurred, Sword-Horse became trapped under a large rock. I could have helped free him as the next-strongest party member, but tried to shine instead and focused on fighting the boss. It didn't go exactly great, we got wiped, and I'm sure that, had I swallowed my pride and helped free Sword-Horse we would have had a better chance of survival. I humbly confess and beg forgiveness for letting jealousy of a DMPC end our first campaign and making the game less fun for my other players. I hope for the mercy of Dice-christ.

Haley P

May it please the esteemed justices and the ever present bailiff: I bring you the case of the family feud. One of the first times I ever played dnd my dad was the DM for my siblings and I. I played a dwarf barbarian and my brother was immediately fixated on the fact that my dwarf had a beard because she was a woman. After repeated in character jokes about pulling my dwarf’s beard- which I told him to knock it off about because dwarves are very particular about their beards- he yanked on it. In retaliation, I swung my axe at him which resulted in him going down to 0 HP but not dying permanently. Since the incident he has refused to play dnd with us, even though I often DM for my sisters and have promised not to kill him again as long as he doesn’t pull on any more dwarven beards. I ask the court: was I in the wrong for killing his character? Or should he accept the consequences of his actions and play with us again? I await the court’s fair and just decision/punishment whatever it shall be. Thank you.

Nick Torino

May it please the court and the maybe the bailiff, whomever that may be: A few years ago I was compelled to play a character inspired by my best friend’s grandmother due to her amazing name, Mafalda (which translates to Mighty in Battle!) I turned her into a Samurai Fighter old lady who went on one last job to earn money for her small village she protected and she became mythicized as one of my groups favorite characters. Time passed since we played and the real life Mafalda has passed away peacefully. Our group wanted to memorialize the character and I came up with a not-so-well received method: I would ask to put her dice I always use in the casket at the wake. This did cheer up my friend when we were at the wake, but was met with an strong “no”, and instead my friend loved how we created a second life for this person who was so important to them. Justices: I humbly request you pass judgment; should I have been allowed to leave Mafalda’s dice with the real Mafalda? Also, unrelated, I almost broke a chair while the priest was talking at the wake.

Jason Rodriguez

For may it please the court and exfoliate the bailiff Hake (this is not a typo). I bring forth the case of the potential meta-massacre. When I had first joined an ongoing campaign midway through, I didn't expect things to accelerate as they did, but my hobgoblin order cleric was ready for anything. My first session with them was a success, all despite the telepathic sorcerer who wasn't able to make that session. But after we entered an underwater gear titan construct, we found ourselves fighting an A.I with the memories of a God. The next session we rolled initiative, and the sorcerer who is now back, was still on the ship staring at a titan rising out of the water. While we were fighting the A.I in the titan's head, the sorcerer had cast a hunger of Hadar inside the head cavity which had me using my first turn to dispel magic. There was no way we would have won this battle so we fled, jumping out of the head one by one. Before I could have made my escape, the sorcerer on his turn casted a fireball right past me into the head dropping me and dealing damage to another pc. The other players and I were in shell shock because of this action, saying that the sorcerer would have known how many of us would have entered the titan before blindly casting an AoE spell. I hope you can come to a consensus on the scenario, I await your judgement.

Jack M

To the esteemed court I ask, when is it okay to interrupt my DM’s villain monologue, My Wizard had just turned 5th level, gaining access to 3rd level spells, My party had snuck up on the Big Bad of this arc giving his army a speech, I was gonna let it rock before fireballing but then the army started to drink of an unknown liquid and the speech was cultish so I casted fireball mid monologue, which seemed to annoy my DM. Was I in the wrong and should’ve let my DM get his long awaited monologue in full, or did I act in accordance to the worry of the unknown liquid, I await your judgement.

Gill

To the honourable justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner and the disorder king Bailiff, I bring the case of the first time crit: I ran a one shot for my aunt, uncle, and cousin. It was their first time playing the game ever and for the oldest member of our crew it was a lot to learn. After character creation, in which my uncle made his Barbarian US Congressman Adam Schiff, we got to playing and he crit on an investigation on a rug I had drawn on the map. I had added it so the map didnt look so empty but had absolutely no plans for anything special and the room served mostly as a chance for them to enjoy the poking around side of dnd before I got them to the main combat. With his crit I let him thoroughly destroy said rug but nothing else came of it in my sweats to get them all to the main encounter in a flooding deeper cavern opa the sewer fight style from unsleeping city. I ask you, should I have let Adam Schiff find something more exciting for this first time player's first ever crit? I humbly await your ruling, Gill

JS

I need to know the answer to this

Codleeco Vision

(To be read in a southern accent and wearing a three piece suit if it pleases the court) May it tickle the court's fancy and give the Baliff a quick five up high and then down low, but not too slow. I offer you Blindsided DM v. The Audacious Crime Druid. Long have there been many cases that have been brought forth of player audacity and I stand here with my very own. I DM'ed a campaign that featured a Crime Druid - aka a multiclass Rogue / Druid combo who had spent a majority of the campaign accusing me of railroading and using his insane stealth to pull some shit. On the way to stop a wedding of another PCs backstory villain, the party stopped at his Druidic Circle and he met with the head sage there where a crime of incredible magnitude was to be perpetrated. As he spoke with the sage, he looked me dead in the eyes and with the audacity of 1000 Arakokra PCs said he needs "THE bow" to which I stared at him and said "What bow?" - and what proceeded was heresy of the highest order. He had in the moment decided that there was a powerful arcane artifact - a bow - that the circle had possession of but in no way communicated that ahead of time either through backstory or through text message. Continuing to insist, I , graciously, in the moment, for the flow of the session, decided such a bow existed, but that it was with their mightiest hunter who was pursuing a dangerous quarry that plagued the circle - and so the party ventured forth - but Justices... I have been in bewildering astonishment since then. I am but a simple, humble DM, but justice surely must be served on this day before this court in this year of our lord Dice Christ 2023. Should the Crime Druid have gotten away with this or will they finally meet the consequences of their actions?

Hope Hughes

To the esteemed justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner and the (soon to be the father of a child who knows who their daddy is) Bailiff Jake. I recently took a planned hiatus from my long term campaign group which was discussed well in advance with the DM. I’ve been playing a circle of stars druid who I, and the party, have become very attached to. My DM planned a farewell session for my character which went really well - until he mentioned at the end that “this would be her final session, ever” as it was tidier this way. I just went along with it at the time as I was surprised by the decision, but as my time to rejoin the campaign approaches, I can’t help but be annoyed that the decision was sprung on me with no prior warning. For context, this particular DM will often make significant changes to backstory or plans week-to-week in order to “create more authentic responses to roleplay.” I humbly await your judgement, and wish you the best of luck down UNDAH

Nico

To the magnanimous justices, their partners, cats, and children, and I believe that’s it, I bring to you a case of teleportation rules. A few sessions ago, my party was ambushed while traveling and one of our members was caught in a bear trap. He attempted to teleport out of the trap entirely via Misty Step but the DM did not allow this. His reasoning was that teleportation teleports whatever is on your person, and the trap counted as being on the character’s person as it had impaled him through the leg, but teleportation is only possible if the items on your person are not fastened or connected to something else. In this case, the bear trap was staked to the ground, so the character couldn’t teleport out of the trap. We had a short debate, and at the end the DM gave the player the choice to teleport, but it would teleport the character out of *all* his belongings, including his clothes, and that would become the precedent for *all* teleportation going forward. This character is a wizard and dropped within the first two rounds as the ambushers ganged up on him. I turn to the judges now — how would you have ruled here? Was this too harsh? Are there legal grounds to challenge my DM's ruling? I await your wisdom.

Sam the BT

To the wonderful bailiffs and the reprehensible King John I present the case of “Airlock Sholmes and the Blowgun of Certain Death.” My ranger shot an NPC detective named Airlock Sholmes in the back of the head with the “Blowgun of Certain Death.” The DM said the detective died. I think this was unfair. Hear me out. We’re working through Candlekeep Mysteries and were currently working on a murder investigation given to us by the aforementioned detective. He was purposefully annoying and condescending to us, throwing out crazy “alternative” theories to any speculation we made. We were mean right back as he was making our characters miserable. It was a great time for all of us at the table. After a particularly stupid “But maybe that ghost was actually lying about her murder!” from the detective I wanted to hit him upside the head with some flair. I decided to use my blowgun for this. Now the name “Blowgun of Certain Death” is an ironic title. It is a blowgun that never misses but can never use special ammo. Its damage is always exactly 3. The joke being “with enough time certainly anyone will die.” I fired but then Airlock instantly went down and when I tried to heal him the DM informed us he only had a max HP of 1 and thus the 3 damage instantly killed him. This was a spry young man and my character never had murderous intent. As one who is usually the DM, I’m often the restrained character of the group, holding back my companions more murder hobo tendencies. Straight up murder is very much out of character. The DM wouldn’t budge. When speaking with the DM later I asked if Airlock needed to be out of the story and he was just taking advantage of an opening. The DM said no; that we were supposed to have him for most of if not all of the of the adventure. The DM wanted us to know that Airlock was no good in combat. I guess we learned. Was Airlock really killed by my ranger, or was he more struck down by the DM.

Dani Sharkey

To the always delightful justices and also the bailiff who regardless of how we're feeling today, I still think is cool, I present to you the Debate of Lac-Toad Intolerance: During a fight against a Froghemoth, my goblin artificer was unfortunately swallowed by the beast. Despite all the restraints this effect put me under, however, I was able to whip out an Alchemy Jug from my bag of holding. Being able to summon any liquid, I asked my DM if filling the Froghemoth's belly with milk would immediately cause the beast to hurl me up. He said no, but the other players and I argued that if your stomach was filled with something you physically can't digest, (as google confirmed amphibians are lactose intolerant), it would definitely make you vomit right away. The DM proposed a compromise, letting me summon the max 12 gallons of saltwater with the jug, and while it wouldn't release me from the beast on my turn, it would give me advantage on my saving throws next round. Ultimately we still had a blast in our session, but we need your ruling Justices-- should this legen-dairy trick be able to slide in combat, or was I too caught up in the bit to admit its impracticality?

Eoin Gleadhill

Howdy Supreme Crits and the honorable Crit Protector Hurwitz. I present the case of the generous DM. Recently in my own homebrew game, I gave my players an Epic Boon after defeating a DracoHydra. It was a well-deserved boon to the players, they currently reside around level 12, but they have brought to my attention how absolutely broken some of these Epic Boons can be, so I am going back through and picking some out. I wanted your opinion, should I retcon and change the level of boon they receive or just give them a level? I'll link in the source for the boons they could look through as well! Thanks for reading, I await your judgement. -A (too?) Generous DM

Alana Ochoa

Hello benevolent High Priests of dice christ and jake, Although this is not a confession, I need the wisdom of the church of DC. I feel as though I have been forsaken by Dice Christ. I would normally never say anything so blasphemous, but I have never heard of such a horrible series of rolls. Our campaign is using roll 20 for battle mats and dice rolling, and during one session that lasted about 3 hours, I rolled 3 nat ones. I felt dejected, but was determined to come back stronger. Next session, I came back with an optimistic attitude, but was met with even more failure. I rolled another 4 Nat ones. In 2 sessions, i rolled a total of 12 times, and 7 of them were nat ones, which means that during two sessions, 58.3% of my rolls were critical failures. Not just below 10, but fill 1’s. My oath of vengeance paladin scourge aasimar is now knocking on death’s door after this series of failures. Is my faith in dice christ being tested? Or have I been forsaken for some unknowing sins? What must I do to be back in Dice Christ’s good graces? I beg for your counsel, oh wise priests.

Donny

Beloved justices and bailiff, I present the case of the ever aging party. I am playing a TTRPG other than d&d and therefore do not have the same grasp on the rules of the system as I do with 5e. So imagine my surprise when I find out our game's passage of time means our characters are actually aging about a year every few sessions, and that my aging character is going to start experiencing penalties for being too old to adventure, and that my character who is nearing her fifties has to use the "find an heir" mechanic I've been ignoring if I want any of my XP or magic items to survive the switch to a younger person. Judges, should the DM have made this facet of the game well known when I joined the group, or should I simply acknowledge that senility comes for us all?

Sofia

To the illustrious Supreme Crit Justices and their funky little bailiff, I humbly seek your wisdom in the case of the stinky shrimp syndrome. My friends and I just decided to start a new campaign after a few years of not playing. The last time we played was my first campaign, so I didn't know a lot about character building. This time I was really excited about a character concept, so I consulted with the DM to learn about the world to integrate my character’s backstory into it and asked if it was ok for me to multi-class (DM said yes). We were starting as 3rd level characters, so I made sure there was a story justification for my character to transition from Wizard to a primary rogue. I decided my character would be on the run, wanted by her home country dead or alive. I was so proud of my character, and I put a lot of work into building her. When we introduced our characters, everyone knew that it was my character’s desire to stay out of the public eye no matter what, and I made stealth checks to make sure I wouldn’t be noticed when out in public. During our first session, we ended up sneaking into a tower where I found a mysterious potion. On a mediocre insight roll, he informed me that there was an interesting advantage to drinking the mystery potion if I was lucky enough, but it could also have other side effects (no details what those could be). Our party ranger did a successful survival check and found the mystery potion to be harmless. I figured I would take the risk of drinking it, because who doesn’t like a little danger, right? Upon drinking the potion, the DM informed me that I now smelled strongly of shrimp. Permanently. I would no longer have proficiency in stealth, and anytime I entered a new space, creatures would know I was there. I wouldn't be able to use sneak attack or make use of surprise rounds. We asked about different spells or magical possibilities for negating the effect (including lesser/greater restoration), and he said none of them would work. The potion had 3 other possible effects: the PC would get great hair, become incredible at cooking, or have to do a Joe Biden impression during important conversations. None of the other effects had mechanical advantages/disadvantages to them; only funny additions to role-playing. We were about to end the session, and the DM said that if I went into death saving throws during combat, I would be cured of my new ailment. During the next week, I formulated a plan with the rest of the party. At our next session, I would start a fight with the paladin in our party and do enough damage to go unconscious. At that point, our ranger (with magic initiate cleric spells) would cast spare the dying, and I would be good to go. Easy, peasy, right? Wrong. After telling the DM our plan, he said that doing death saving throws would no longer cure the shrimp syndrome and he wouldn't let me try to kill myself. I pushed back, obviously. It was an entirely in character choice to fix this problem as fast as possible, but he told me, as a player, to be a better sport about it and move on. He knew that being unseen and sneaking around was how my character survived, and that was the entire reason I multi-classed into rogue. Without the rogue ability, I would basically be playing a 1st level wizard with shrimp stink in a party of (now) 4th level characters. He eventually accepted that I wouldn't move on from this, and said he would write in a powerful sorcerer who would be able to cure my shrimpy-ness. He was clearly annoyed by the whole situation, but I feel justified in not brushing past it. A lot of my character work was around me being on the run, and I didn’t even get a chance to roll constitution to fight off the effect. He said the potion would be harmless, but the effect definitely DID do harm to my character. Was I right in pushing back against my DM’s decision, or should have I have just taken my shrimpy stench in stride?

3 Minions in a trench coat

May it please the court, and the venerable bailiff Josh, I gave my players a free feat for participating in a beach episode side adventure on a day one player couldn’t make it. My rogue took the poisoner feat. It just so happened that the next few big enemies they faced were all immune to poison. My player was upset at not being able to use the new feat and accused me of doing it intentionally to be mean to her. Also she is my gf. This has been an ongoing argument for the last 4 months. Am I wrong to stick with my prep or should I have given them the ability to be poisoned so she could feel more useful. We are both listening to humbly await your judgement.

Flying Mongeese

To the honorable justices and the Great Jakes. I have been DMing for my younger cousins for years now and one campaign involved going into the mind of people around their home town and expelling the 7 Deadly Sins that mess with the inner psyche of the victim (inspired from the Persona Series). One of the flavor I used is that their weapons were replicas in the real world but would be the real deal in the Mind world. My cousin (12 at the time) playing the wizard named Brandon decided that if the weapon flavor was true, then he could minor illusion an anvil above someone and it would seem so believable that it would manifest a real anvil above monsters head. I, seeing how this would be extremely overpowered for a Cantrip, immediately vetoed it. He argued with me a little, but we all are good pals, so he accepted my answer and we moved on. However, I sometimes feel like I may have stifled a cool creative idea that was somewhat justified within the world. Am I wrong for my decision? Was there a way I could’ve nurtured this creativity to something not broken? I humbly await your verdict and punishment.

Rahul Narayan

To the honourable justices & the smelly bailiff, I am a DM and this case is potentially a 3-way grievance. One of my players backstories was that he opened up a small flower shop, Best Buds, so I gave him a rival flower shop, Petal To The Metal. To kick off the campaign I had my players collect some flowers for an upcoming royal wedding from the outskirts of town but when the Best Buds arrived, they found that Petal To The Metal hired some goons to set all the flowers alight. The players then confronted the goons and in the encounter our sorcerer went down. I used a goon to strike her unconscious body for 2 death saves - I knew it was the fighters turn next and we all knew he had a potion, i even gave him a suggestion... you can use a potion to bring the sorcerer back up or you can do something else... instead, he chose to attempt (and fail) to disarm the goon that struck down the sorcerer. Sure enough, the sorcerer failed their next death save and we had no access to revivify or anything of the like - the sorcerer blames the fighter, but the fighter blames me for such a difficult encounter in session 1. I did fudge the numbers a bit to create a high stakes environment but I thought the fighter would use the potion that I knew he had. So my question, who was responsible for our sorcerers demise?

Jayson J

May it please the benevolent court and bring the smallest grin to the bailiff, I bring the case of the impossible combat. Our DM said he wanted to test a different type of initiative for our upcoming battle and had each of us do a roll off with the enemy we were facing to see which person got to go first. Our goal was to protect an NPC who was down. At first each of us had our own opponents so the roll off was working and interesting. Eventually we made our way to the fallen NPC and there was one mega boss enemy trying to kill them. We arrived on scene and were told that each of us had to roll off against the baddie but since there was one of him and five of us he got a full turn between each of our turns (5 full turns a round) with three attacks, plus legendary actions which he could use to renew a dragons breath level attack. In addition, it was not enough to use a healing spell on the fallen NPC we used potions, spells, and lay on hands in order to make a medicine check to see if we could find what was wrong with them. Three of our PC’s went down 3x each and it was TPK territory so the dm had the monster leave. The DM said that previous combats were too easy on us and we shouldn’t be upset with how things went since we didn’t die. Are we wrong for not wanting to use this new initiative system or should we just suck it up and let the dm use it to make encounters more deadly?

Dawson

To the honorable justices and for Jake? Make a persuasion roll may Dice Christ be your judge this time. I run an incredibly homebrew game where almost everyone is a homebrew subclass with crazy items. I’ve also tried making battles bigger and crazier so we can have one to two fun encounters as opposed to a ton of little ones. On an expedition to go save one of the party’s father they were attacked by Sky Pirates. In an amazing display of teamwork two of my party used a potion of ultimate power, a brand new spell and their team mate also used a homebrew item’s portent roll to make the big bad captain also fail his save. This immediately killed every crew member of the opposing crew. Where I may have sinned is improvising a Barbarian rage mechanic increasing his size and summoning a new round of crew to keep the fight going while making a huge deal about how pissed/horrified he was they had wiped out “half his crew” It was a spur of the moment attempt to make the combat a challenge and not just ultimately anti-climactic but in hindsight should I have just let them have this cool moment of absolutely DEVASTATING Captain DreadJaw and his sky shark pirates? Or was it necessary to provide more combat and let the other members play too?

Combat Callie

To the radical judges and the cowabunga worthy bailiff, I present the case of the sort of disinterested boyfriend. My DM just started a new campaign (his first full homebrew campaign) and me & our party's monk really enjoyed the first session. My boyfriend however didn't participate much and after the DM & The monk went home he told me that D&D just might not be his thing. But he says he still wants to be there durring sessions because he likes listening to us. What do I do!? I still want to include him in the groups activities (we are a close friend group outside of d&d also) but I don't want to make him feel left out?

525600 Mimics

Forgive me, Dice Christ, for I have sinned. I, along with two other DMs, run weekly Adventurers’ League games at our local game store. Besides the occasional drop-in, I have seven regular players, and six of them are great. The other one liberally casts the spell silvery barbs, and asked me to sidebar with him after I let a different character open a treasure chest that he said he wanted to open first. Recently, the other two DMs were out of town, and it looked like I was going to have to run a table for 11 people. I deputized my problem player to DM his own table that night, partly to take some of the stress off myself, partly to have one session in which I wouldn’t have to deal with him. Two brand new players showed up to the store for game night, played at his table for two hours, then left for a “10-minute break,” never returned, and quit the Discord server for the store. I don’t know what went down at that table—I was too busy having a great session—but fear that I may have done so at the cost of two people being forever turned off the hobby. I tried to reach out to the players who left, but never heard back. How should I repent for my selfish act?

Scarlett B

To the honourable Lady Axford, the honourable Lords Murphy and Tanner, and mr g.hurzwit. If it pleases the court, I present the case of Otiluke's Resilient death trap. My party and I were helping an NPC escape from politicial instability in her kingdom. We were set upon by assassins on the road, who tried to kill her as we fled in our cart. I cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the NPC, protecting her from harm. My DM argued that, since Otiluke's Resilient Sphere specifies that "nothing – not physical objects, energy, or other spell effects – can pass through the barrier, in or out, though a creature in the sphere can breathe there" that the NPC could only breathe the oxygen that was in the sphere when it was created, after which it would run out, since no new oxygen could pass through the sphere and the NPC would start suffocating. I respectfully called bullshit, but the DM insisted he was correct. This was some time ago but I still maintain that I was right, Justices, I beseech you for a fair ruling (preferably one where you agree with me).

TwiggB

May it please the ever-steadfast court and MY best friend Jake the bailiff. Recently in a 5e campaign I play in, which has an upcoming battle royal tournament of god chosen champions. I play as a paladin of Amanautor. Our party was in a cave, meeting an important NPC. The demon prince Mephistopheles arrived at the cave, looking to steal a champion and disrupt the tournament. All of us refused, but I made a counter proposal with him. In return for him destabilizing the Dark Elven empire (the largest nation, warlike and enslaving/indenturing other races), our party would end the tournament by defeating the premise of it, thus forcing the cosmos in chaos. Instead of maybe assassination the emperor or something similar, Mephistopheles called down a meteor onto the capital city of the Dark Elven empire. This has resulted in a crater and dust cloud that has converted most of the continent to a desolate wasteland, AS well as opening a rift in the sky directly to the Abyss. This has started a war between the upper and lower planes on the prime material plane. Am I right to be a tiny bit miffed by the outcome? Or did I get what I deserve for dealing with Mephistopheles? I will accept any punishment issued Additional info, the tournament is held to find the strongest god, who then holds the power earned through their champion against a chained god Therasdun who aims to turn the multiverse into darkness and void. Our plan to end the tournament is to kill him

Lorne Mintz

Hello esteemed Crit Justices and the Bailiff Jake who is in a constant state of social status flux. I bring to you the case of the Deck of Many Things and the Card that wasn't pulled. I play in a long-term campaign a character named Allister who is a Adolescent Bugbear Pirate who is both a Champion Fighter and Swashbuckler Rogue and has a backstory as a thief. Suffice to say I put a lot of thought and care into my character, especially in regards to his stats. Me and my party having just defeated a slime boss in a pocket dimension were on our way back to meet up with our questgiver when our DM offered up an interaction to the party of a man who was trying to entice us with the Deck of Many Things. We were not willing to partake in such a dangerous gamble. However, seeing as how our DM really wanted to get someone to pull a card, I asked him to roll persuasion to see if my character would be convinced to try it. He rolled a 13 and my character a 12, and so I swallowed my pride and decided for the sake of fun I would pull a card. Now here is where I should mention that we play online, and often the dm chooses to roll for certain things like luck or percentage dies (usually shopping related), however; I had in this instance asked to roll for my result as my fate was in the hands of the deck, but he said he was using a website and therefore couldn't have it done that way. So inevitably he pulled a card for me and he spoke the result, and to my surprise I received a +2 to my highest stat. Since my STR was already max I increased my DEX from 16 to 18. I was quite happy with this result and we all moved on with no one else pulling a card. Here is now where the problem occurs, at the end of the session my DM sends me a private discord message letting me know that I didn't actually pull the +2 card, and that in fact had pulled a card to decrease my intelligence by 3. He felt bad and didn't want to have to see my character lose stats which is a nice gesture I suppose but he probably should have just given me the actual result. I have an INT of 11 and lowering that to 8 would just be a -1 which I would have just ran with. But when the DM asked me if I wanted to keep my +2 DEX or take the -3 INT, I told him I'd like to keep the DEX. My logic here is that I had no say in the fact that what I thought was my card result was not actually true, and since the DM told me I got what I got, that is now kind of the canon result in the story, and if I had to choose, I'd rather keep a buff than retcon it to a debuff. While obviously the DM probably should have just told me the real result, was I in the wrong for not taking the -3 or is it fair of me to keep my now tainted result as the dm had chosen that to be my character's fate and not me.  I await your council.

Daniel Jester

To the just justices and the entrusted bailiff, I present the case of the Absent Grappler, Illikan Ninecount. I play an unarmed Human Rune Knight built to excel at grapples and shoves to put enemies on the ground where my party has advantage against them. I truly love charging into combats to push pirates off boats, shove bears off cliffs, and pin giant spiders to the floor with my +11 to Athletics (and advantage when using my Giant's Might). I had to miss our last session due to personal illness but asked the DM to play without me and let the party run my character. apparently, my character fell unconscious several times during the fighting....and my dm rolls on a lingering injury table for each instance. In the past I've received broken ribs, minor scars, and lost a finger (all fun flavor I've enjoyed as memories of tough battles). Last session, Illikan lost a leg and 10 ft of movement speed, making him practically useless in combat with no spells or ranged options. While the rolls were all in the open, I feel like such a drastic injury to my character shouldn't have happened during my absence....even if the party was playing him the same way I would've. I leave the judgement on the missing foot in your esteemed hands.

Maggie (justaseedguy)

To the honorable and capricious justices and the lowly and/or venerated bailiff (depending on how the justices are feeling), I present the case of the failed persuasion check. Our level two characters are currently in the middle of a series of puzzles at a mysterious library in the feywild that will help determine our character’s subclasses and the fate of the campaign (it’s really not that serious). During the first puzzle, we encountered a room with a sword stuck in the table and writing on the wall that said “speak my name.” Our party’s rogue Elara cheekily announced “my name” and the DM had her roll a persuasion check against him. She got a 25 but was not successful. My fighter was able to cast identify and discover the name of the sword, but judges, should the DM have disclosed the DC for the check before she rolled? Or should we be grateful we weren’t punished for such silliness?

foster the boneless duck

To the pretty solid bailiff and the judges, especially the effervescent Judge Axford, may it please the court, I bring to you the case of the riddle and the pun. (my player also submitted a case but here's my pov) I run an online game for 5 naddpole friends set in the feywild (We are scattered accross Australia and the Americas). I used witchlight as a jump of point but I'm not running the module as it isn't my style. To save the carnival they must do some research which is why they have just arrived at the City Library of Hoskelu built like Mahishmati (or according to my players', dreamworks' own El Dorado). To access the library they now have to complete a personalised puzzle room which will alsoo help them choose their upcoming level 3 subclasses/pact boob. I devised a chamber of more than 8 puzzle rooms (i can't reveal the full number as they will be listening to this and haven't completed it yet) each designed to be specifically completed by this party. For example, a very hard cliff to climb with a key to the next door for our fairy character to fly up and grab. Or a room with a cutout that looked like 4 party members combined together for the changeling to solve. One such puzzle was a room with a sword on a stand, with the word "speak my name" written in common. It was designed for the fighter who has the Identify spell as the spell would reveal the swoord's name and when spoken it would reveal the exit. Our lovely eladrin rogue immediately blurted out "My Name" and though I facepalmed like the good DM I am, I prompted a persuasion roll against myself. Though it was a 25 I simply shook my head and said that nothing happened which everyone simply laughed at. Later however, as they were contemplating whether they should say they name of the sword, the rogue playfully commented that they still think "my name" should have worked to which the rest of the party agreed. I asked them to roll a nat 20 right now which turned out to be an 8 so we let it lie. The only reason I think I may have been wrong is that I would have actually accepted it if one of them had simply pronounced their own name or rolled a nat 20 for a bad pun. So should I have allowed "My Name" to complete my puzzle? What is the court's position on puns? I humbly bow my neck to your glory and please be assured that as a table of dice christ followers we will be enacting this punishment as you command. PS: I am meeting the Fairy PC in Brisbane for the liveshow.

Kane Sanchez

I’m stressing out! Judges, bailiff, I present the case of the jerk character. I DM a party consisting of two couples. My friend’s wife is playing a college aged elf wizard who started off just wanting to learn new spells to save their professor, but as the sessions got more serious with combat encounters and story points (they’re looking to kill Tiamat), her character gets more snarky with the NPCs. I tried light razzing, puzzles. casual joke sessions, a curse, even harder combats to try to get some of the chaos out. Their character is just slowly becoming more and more rude to everyone, and now some of the PCs, turning into some short spats after the game. I simply ask, am I wrong for trying to wrangle them back to the character they were, or should I let it play out as normal? I humbly await on my eggs.

David Heintz

Hey weirdos, I present the case of Heat Metal vs Sanctuary. During combat, the DM's Pyromancer sorceror cast Heat Metal on my PC's scale mail, while I, the cleric, was under the protection of the sanctuary spell. I amiably argued that "Heat Metal" was a 'harmful spell' that should be deflected by Sanctuary. My DM cordially countered that because "Heat Metal" targets an object, not a creature, that my armor was the target and thus Sanctuary could not deflect the spell. I goodheartedly groused that surely, even if Heat Metal wasn't technically targeting me as a creature, it was cast on MY armor, and was clearly intended to be harmful, which would make sanctuary work. The DM respectfully remained firm, stating that because 5e has such a clear distinction between "objects" and "creatures", we had to go pure 'rules-as-written', and treat the object, my armor, as the target of the Heat Metal, and myself, a creature, as the target of sanctuary. Since sanctuary protects creatures, and not objects, it's protection did nothing against HM. I cleverly claimed that clearly, we should consider the Intent of these spells, and not focus so specifically on language that would lead to a rather perplexing outcome. What say you justices? I urge you to consult the sacred texts and come to a fair, just ruling or whatever. PS: If you are interested in the outcome, we agreed to settle it with a roll: Odds, Heat Metal worked; Evens, Sanctuary worked and Heat Metal was deflected. My DM rolled a 15 in front of the table and my PC took 11 fire damage in the first round, and was later fully killed by a wall of fire. (It was fine though, I had a magic acorn from an ancient tree spirit that turned out to have the resurrection spell on it, and apparently it was always my DMs plan to resurrect me with it the first time I died, and make tree spirit my new god, if I wanted.) All's well that ends well, but I maintain that the semantic difference between 'object' and 'creature' when talking about armor occupies some pretty middle school energy: like when your friend swings a foam bat at your head then says "you can't be mad, I was swinging at your HAT, not YOUUUU".

ap.cleric

May it please the court and stump the bailiff, I play in a high-level campaign with a group of my online friends. Last session, we were fighting a kraken while on a pirate ship. One of the kraken's tentacles had grabbed a teammate and promptly swallowed them. I asked the DM (my husband) if I could make a check to know whether or not a banishment spell cast on the kraken would also banish my teammate. The DM read the mechanics and said that technically since my teammate was alive, and since the spell only targeted one creature, I could cast the spell. The kraken failed its Charisma saving throw by one point. The group was ecstatic. We got our teammate back aboard and had the captain maneuver the ship to the other side, and once the kraken reappeared, we blasted it with 5 cannons and a shit load of spells. We promptly defeated the beast and celebrated our victory. My questions is, did I cheat the system? Could I have been able to banish a creature as big as a kraken? I want the victory to feel clean and deserved, not given by a misunderstanding. I am at the mercy of the court and will accept any punishment given. Amber C aka ap.cleric

Lucas

To the honourably bubbly judges Axeford, Tanner, and Murphy, and the seldom honourable bailiff Jukebox. I present to you the case of the WOBBLY WATERFALL. This happened years ago when I first started DMing and my players first started playing. On an underground river, the PCs floated along a makeshift raft. I narrated how they began to hear water rushing more violently. Ahead was a waterfall. As they scrambled to figure out what to do, they noticed areas next to the waterfall where they could potentially jump off to. One of the PCs took this escape. The rest suffered a bit of analysis paralysis. After a minute of deciding as they teetered off the edge in slow motion, they decided to just brace themselves. I asked everyone to make Dex saving throws, which were failed. They fell, the raft toppled over them, and smashed onto them as they hit the rocks and water below. One of the characters lost a finger permanently from the amount of damage taken. The player who hopped off the raft was fine and stabilized those who went down. All this to say, should I have done something differently, and maybe let them off a bit easier? Are waterfalls and raft physics to blame, or am I the monster? I accept your verdict whatever it may be.

Tess Bre

Dice Christ Confession: Bishops of Dice Christ, I need your blessing as I believe I'm cursed. I have been playing dnd for a long time and I love the idea of having familiars and pets in the game. Help actions are nice but also having just a little creature along for the ride is so fun when it fits the character. But praised be Dice Christ, whenever I have a familiar they either die or I am cursed to forget about them. I then feel extreme Dice Christ-ian guilt over forgetting (or worse) my little guys. My most recent familiar was a dolphin my druid bonded with in an underwater campaign. In session 0 we trialed a combat and my precious dolphin was brutally killed by sharks. Because of this I decided not have the familiar when the campaign started. Help me Dice Christ, you're my only hope.

John Solorzano

To the honorable supreme crit, highest court in the land, I humbly present a case of attempted murder of a listener by your very own Bailiff. That's right, you just may have an attempted murderer in your midst. I was recently listening to the Boston Dungeon Court live show on a drive with my wife. I was enjoying the episode, enjoying my wife's company, enjoying a latte, and enjoying life in general. Then he struck. Just as I took a good swig of my vanilla latte Jake said "that's my favorite part of the King Kong film, when he eats the giant banana" and I swear to dice Christ he looked at me right through the audio. It got me at just the right moment, and latte filled my lungs as I sped down the highway. I tried in vain to cough it up, starting to panic as the seconds turned into almost two minutes of not taking a full breath. In the end I managed to pull over safely, foiling the dastardly bailiffs attack. But I was very nearly ended in the most embarrassing way possible, with super basic bitch coffee. I implore the court to find justice, thank you for your time.

Gillian Chu

To the noble judges and the unscrupulous bailiff, I bring the case of the needy NPC. This is a complaint from a dnd campaign I have since left, but I’m still plagued by concerns that I was in the wrong. My DM introduced an NPC, Rosie. At first, things were going well; Rosie would give us advice during combat and would occasionally produce free items. As the sessions went on, Rosie’s major daddy issues became more apparent. The DM was insistent we help her work through her insecurities, despite a clear lack of interest from the players. It got to the point where the DM would roleplay peoples characters having heart-to-hearts with Rosie when they had to miss a session. The DM even sent us long letters from Rosie’s perspective about how we weren’t close enough. I tried texting the DM about it, but instead of responding he sent me pictures of cute animals. Eventually Rosie the NPC got kidnapped (by her father) and I convinced the party not to bother rescuing her. Was I wrong to ruthlessly abandon Rosie? Or should I have played along with the story the DM wanted to tell? I rest my conscience in your capable hands. P.S. please my name is Gillian as in giraffe. None of my professors can get it right.

Ben Kullerd

To the omniscient justices and the perfectly fine bailiff, I present to you the case of opportunity grapple. I run a 5e homebrew campaign in which my PCs are competing in a multi-part elimination tournament between the ten Dragonborn clans. The finals take place on the three levels of a giant Dragonchess board, and on the second-to-last level, one of my PCs asked to make a grapple check as an opportunity attack against one of the enemy teams’ champions. Not knowing the rule off the top of my head, I agreed to keep combat moving along. He crit, and by subduing and ultimately tying up the champion, our team proceeded to the final level unopposed. After the session, I looked it up, and the language in the PHB makes it pretty clear that a grapple check is different than an attack roll, making it unsuitable for an opportunity attack. I brought this up with my players and said I wouldn’t allow it moving forward, wanting to avoid any further self-whomps, but they continue to fight me on it to this day. Was I in the right to allow this sick but illegal move and change my mind later, or are my players entitled to continue handing me my own ass?

Luke Knecht

To the esteemed justices and the sometimes liked bailiff. I present the case of the bullied bailiff. I'm a part of a DND group that roleplays court cases (no connection). As a juror I mostly just listen to the cases and I've noticed the three justices we have bully our Bailiff Jack (once again, no connection). This has been going on for almost five years (completely a coincidence that you have been doing this for roughly the same amount of time). The worst of the three is Justice Muff (still no connection) and he usually decides if Bailiff Jack is in good graces or not. So I ask, does Bailiff Jack deserve the fickle feelings of the Justices? Again I must say, absolutely no connection whatsoever.

Matt Thackray

To the mighty justices and the supremely neat bailiff. I present The Case of the Forbidden Apple. My boyfriend and I played out first DnD campaign together a few years ago, which was a Final Fantasy 10 campaign without any modifiers or meaningful stats. We played for about a year until we quit. The reasons are innumerable, but it all came to an end with that godforsaken fruit. You see, my boyfriend played an alchemist and he was always trying to find new items to mix together to make bombs and potions. One session this genuine curiosity led him to pick an apple from a tree in a graveyard. The DM asked, “Are you sure?” and my boyfriend of course said yes. It turned out to be a really good item that boosted our stats, so really a total win. A few sessions later, we were circling back by the same tree, and my boyfriend naturally wanted to pick more apples. Once again the DM asked if he was sure, and we all said yeah. Suddenly, a ghost came out of the tree and demanded we put it back and apologize! Our party decided to fight instead, and after a long fought battle it seemed like we had won. Unfortunately, that was apparently only one of three ghosts, and they eventually swarmed us and trapped my boyfriend’s character in a tree. I was already done at this point so my character threw a fireball at the tree, effectively killing my boyfriend’s character and freeing us. We then immediately left. Years later, we asked if that fight was winnable, and the DM just said, “No, he needed to learn a lesson.” So I throw myself at the mercy of the court. Were we hoodwinked into fantastical perils without just cause, or were we the bad apples all along?

Zaxbeez

No court case but can the Casefinder tell Jill and Tucker Happy Valentine’s Day for me, thanks.

Crescent Minor

Er ... your old DM had, at minimum, some issues with being controlling. Maybe they were inserting themselves into the story through this NPC, and that's why they felt this was okay? Well, it wasn't, this is a selfish way to DM.

Kid Dynomite

To the often punctual judges (Especially Judge Murphy, he’s pretty cool) and the bailiff who only operates on Jake Standard Time. I am a player in an online campaign that’s been going on for about a year. I play a Drow Hexblade who serves the goddes Eilistraee. Last session my DM made me roll a history check against a random drow in a supermarket and I rolled a 9. He said this just seems to be a regular drow I do not know. Because of that I paid him no mind. Later near the end of the session our party gets ambushed by the drow from earlier who is revealed to be my character’s twin brother. I argued that I should’ve recognized him earlier regardless of how I rolled at the market. My DM replied and said that because I didn’t meet the DC, I failed simple as that. After a heated debate, mostly on his part as I was just confused my I had to make a history check for my twin brother, I let it go and the session ended there. My question to the judges, Was I wrong to feel like I should not have had to roll for someone so familiar or am I just being a stubborn loser? My fate is in your hands

Crescent Minor

Mental image there is of dive-tackling a guy as he tries to run away. Whatever game breaks being able to do that causes, as a player I really, really want to go full linebacker on a necromancer.

Ben Kullerd

Totally agree - definitely a cool move and the kind of shenanigans I would otherwise reward. I’m not even a rules stickler - just salty they took out the other team so easily. Punish me, Justices, punish me!

CamSmall

To the Highest Court of Crits and the lowliest of Bailiffs, unless we like Jake this week. We never really know week to week, so this is really just a crap shoot. Anyway, I've been DMing a game of Curse of Strahd for a bit over two years. We frequently have to end sessions mid-combat due to timing, and have the precedent of retconning things as we use time between sessions to clarify rules and players actually look at their abilities. My overpowerd level 9 players are exploring a dungeon, where they encountered an Arcanaloth and some Flameskulls. In the middle of combat, the arcanaloth knocked out a paladin PC with a 7th Level Finger of Death spell. Next in initiative was the party's druid, who came out of wildshape to hit the paladin with their one 5th level spell slot of Cure Wounds. We had to leave the session mid-combat, and ended with the druid healing the paladin (bringing them back up to 28 HP) and realizing that the DMPC wizard ally who was supposed to be with the paladin wasn't there. Here's where things get confusing--per the wording of Finger of Death, "A humanoid killed by this spell rises at the start of your next turn as a zombie that is permanently under your command, following your verbal orders to the best of its ability." Meaning that at the start of the Arcanaloth's next turn, the paladin would be a zombie. Since the druid cast Cure Wounds before it became the Arcanaloth's next turn, would that stop the paladin from rising as a zombie? The Paladin would normally make death saving throws, not being fully dead; however, the language of the spell that killed the PC makes it seem that they wouldn't make the death saves because "the next turn" would not be enough time for the PC to make or fail 3 death saving throws. To further complicate the matter, the PC who plays the paladin was not at session and I would hate to kill their character when they were not at the table. As it ended, for clarification, the paladin was conscious and prone with 28 HP after the Cure Wounds since it had not gotten around to the arcanaloth's turn. I am fine with leaving it as is, and continuing the combat without my players knowing that I may have accidentally zombified a PC. My question is twofold--first, with the language of Finger of Death, would a knocked out PC make death saving throws? Second, if not, would a Cure Wounds suffice to heal them, or would they be considered dead and need a stronger revivification spell such as Revivify or Reincarnate or True Resurrection? I humbly await a verdict from Your Honors as to whether or not I have wronged my player (or by the precedence of retconning things midcombat between session zombify my player), and accept any punishment deemed fit for knocking out and/or possibly killing an absent PC. May Dice Christ have mercy on my soul. PS, I was at the live D&D Court in Boston and thank you Justice Murphy for taking a croissanting for us.

Crescent Minor

'Learn a lesson'? About what, using a resource your DM told you was helpful?

Cameron L

To the high priests and priestess of the court, I come before you to confess a sin against Dice Christ: I have flouted His holy action economy. It was one of the first combat encounters I ever played, but I already knew the rules quite well. I was a sorcerer. The enemy dragon was low on HP, and I was out of sorcery points. After I'd already used a bonus action that turn, I silently converted two of my spell slots to sorcery points—knowing that this is supposed to require a bonus action for each slot converted. My twinned Enlarge/Reduce spell shrunk the dragon and enlarged our wyvern ally, leading to a spectacular finish, so I feel like it turned out well. But I still wish to be absolved of the guilt of hiding my extra actions from the DM instead of getting their approval. I humbly await your judgement.

Riki Shimoda

To my honorable two crew celebrity judges and my celebrity crush bailiff. I have a Dice Christ miracle. I was playing a barbarian viking in my friends Ragnarok campaign. In the first session my characters brother got killed dishonorably and was sent to Niffleheim where my character, throughout the campaign, struggled to find a way to get him to Valhala. On the last session my character was able to free his soul and return him to Vahlala. He then rushed to meet the opposing force, fought honorably, yet was outnumbered and fell making death saves. After failing one death save, I prayed desperately to the almighty dice christ for my character to die. And as I rolled my second death save, I was never happier, to see a Natural 1. My character died on the battle field and joined his brother in Valhala. Dice christ has blessed me and my character with a near perfect character arc and I am grateful every day for that Natural 1. Ps. I named this character after my real celebrity crush Zac Oyama... sorry Jake.

Wesley Ball

To the diligent justicars of the supreme crit, and the late on the jakes bailiff Harbo. I prostrate myself before both church and state and I wish to provide further context for some of my previous statements. Context originally omitted for the sake of brevity. I am the player who was excommunicated after looking through the campaign book following a robbed nat 20 intimidation. And while I know there was no excuse for this, it will make at least a little more sense to know the history of this DM. We played for a total of 6 sessions before the night of my crime. The DM started out nice, but was the only single person at the table, the players being myself, my wife, and another couple. After a few sessions, he began making progressively creepier advances towards the women at the table, commenting on chest size and repeatedly talking over them and dismissing their input into the game. This culminated with him giving my wife a goodbye hug at the end of the evening and attempting to unhook her bra through her shirt as a “joke.” Suffice to say the campaign ended that night, so I didn’t feel that bad for looking in the book afterwards. P.S. My wife is a damn dime piece with a heart of gold. A straight up Sacagawea dollar. Her one comment at the end of the evening was that it hurt her feelings, and she was sad the game was over, and she thought he was her friend.

Aaron Thomas

Youncle Update! To the amazing and brilliant supreme crit and that guy who rents a room in Tuckers house. I decided to DM for my uncle as the court suggested and here is how it went. He homebrewed a Paladin that was just all the best stuff from every other subclass which was ok but annoying. I at one point allowed my players to ask for magic items and I would curate them to see if it was OK. He asked for a ring that replenished 2 spell slots per short rest or a shield that had 3 charges and cast haste per charge. Gave him the ring thinking it was the lesser of two evils (boy was I wrong). He then proceeded to demand the wizard cast haste on him every battle and played the stereotypical kill everything that's evil with no nuance paladin and mad it not fun for anyone that wanted to roleplay. Needless to say the campaign only lasted like 15 sessions before I became tired of putting out fires and called it. I ask the court, do you think we should try to play again and if so who should DM. I humbly await your decision.

SurvingLaw

To the judges, My friends suck. The end.

Husdogrob

To the Judges who sit high above all, and the Bailiff Jake who stands forever below. I come to you with the case of Narrative Vs Rules as written. I recently dmed a short play parody of Scooby Doo (2002) I had planned to kidnap the Tabaxi Bard player so that like Scooby-Doo they would get persuaded into being a sacrifice, I had their captor use the dash to close distance planning to use a knockout gas skill I gave them next turn. The Bard then promptly casted Invisibility and said I run away. Panicking, I claimed that the monster would use their reaction to swipe at the area they were in from confusion. I successfully hit and knocked them out of the spell, and later carried them off. While they did not seem super angry I could tell they were not happy with the immediate outcome. Was I wrong for going against RAW to keep the plans on track. I will humbly accept any punishment so long as the Bailiff does stand. -Beholder Bob

KoboldB0i

To the transcended justices and the Baeliff (if you're feeling soft), I present the case of "Closing the door on Dimension Door" I play a female brass dragonborn divine soul sorcerer in a 3 party campaign (including myself). Looking into the wording of Dimension door, I figured it was a big enough grey area when it refers to bringing someone with you as "targeting a creature" where it would fall in line with the Meta Magic, Twin spell. I pleaded my case to my DM about this cool idea to aid us in popping into the enemy's food supply barn to burn it down. After a minute of back and forth he struck the idea down. I plead oh justices, was I denied a cool rule to aid a small party? Or should my silly mechanics be stubbed by the closing door? I eagerly await your decision.

Matt Thackray

The DM has a highly sensitive pet peeve about disrespecting the dead and was trying to get us to admit that it was morally wrong, in and out of the game.

Morgan Longmore

To the esteemed, graceful and transcendent supreme crit and the (glances down to the snivelling, pale creature clinging to my trouser leg) uh.. the bailiff, I present a tale of injustice, love, and betrayal. About four years ago, I was DMing my first Waterdeep: dragon heist session (I was fourteen, it was bad) and there was a point in the first dungeon where you could get transported to the villain Xanathar's home. I had already decided which room he was in and, inevitably, it was the one my player randomly rolled on. I was a new DM and thought I had to do everything the book says so the BBEG was in the room with one of my first level characters and I rolled a d10 to decide which of his eye beams he uses out of shock, rolling a 9: the disintegration ray. The character, being level one, died from 10d8 force damage and I ended the session, telling the player they had to make a new character. It is four years later, and that player and I have been in a relationship for 3 1/2 of those, I love them so much I could explode, but they sometimes still light-heartedly mention this moment, asking why I decided killing their character in the first session was worth staying true to the book. Judges, I understand this is an open and shut case, but for the sake of my sanity and my relationship, justice must be served. I welcome whatever is coming my way, and will be showing them your ruling as an attempt at retribution.

Jarla

I present to the court the case of the not so friendly demon on a motorcycle. And also to the bailiff, keep it up and you'll be great at this one day. Some months ago in a relatively new campaign, our party of 6 or 7 was introduced to a demon on a motorcycle. This demon was not actively aggressive towards us at first, but did make his intention to kill and eat people (including our party) extremely clear to us. Despite this, the party insisted on reasoning with the demon to not kill and eat people. The reasoning goes nowhere until one member of the party has enough and out of character declares her intent to attack the demon, to the disapproval of all other party members except for me for "not trying to talk it out" with the demon. The DM ends the session there, not giving said party member a free attack out of initiative. The next session begins with the DM calling for rolling initiative to continue with the party member's intent to attack the demon. I roll the highest initiative, higher than even the demon which would turn out to be significantly more powerful than the party. So I attack the demon, again to jeers and anger from the rest of the party. One other party member has a turn before the demon and spends his turn talking to the demon and nothing else. When the demon has a turn, he knocks out half the party at once. Following this, the rest of our turns are spent trying to run from this demon who is still on a motorcycle and easily catches up with us without using his Action. Seeing this, I stop trying to run and focus on attacking the demon as a barbarian, deciding that I would probably die either way and I would rather die fighting, until the spellcasters are able to teleport the party to safety. We ended up in some ancient ruins, but any possibility of exploring those ruins were removed as the session quickly turned into the rest of the party yelling at me for being the first to actually attack the demon and for not trying to run away. Choice statements that stuck with me are "So your first instinct when adrenaline kicks in is to escalate to violence?" and "You should've at least tried to run away even if you thought it was impossible and you'd die anyway instead of choosing to die in combat." The next day the DM decided to cancel the campaign. Was I right to be the first to attack on initiative even though no attacks had been dealt yet or did I deserve the anger and blame that was heaped on me for the rest of the session and in the group chat for the rest of the day? And further, was I right to choose a death by battle over a death by being stabbed in the back by an 80s metal mascot even though ultimately no one died in the encounter?

Jules B.

To the mighty and resplendent justices of the supreme crit, who’s shoes I stoop to kiss; and the ill made, devious, disobedient little bailiff, full of envy, spite, and low cunning. May I humbly and graciously present the case of new DM and the Rolled Levels. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, was introduced to D&D by me and wanted to DM a campaign for two of his friends who had never played before. He asked me to join as an experienced player, as he had played only one game before, a sloppy oneshot I threw together. I agreed and was hit with a curveball right off the bat. I was asked to roll a d20 to figure out my starting level. Already a little concerned, I rolled on camera and got a nat 20. I went about making my character with very little input, a tiefling gunslinger from the nine hells, and the day before the first session was told to make a different character that was an animal. Luckily I was to shift them to a helllound without too much trouble. In the first session, we were joined by a cardinal with red dragon stats (either ancient or adult I can’t remember), I was immediately attacked out of initiative, we got teleported to the nine hells, the new players were in rare form, and it ended after about an hour. I was unable to make the next game as I had work, and heard after that the DM played my character for me. That cemented my decision to leave. Though it was a few years ago, it still sticks in my craw. Should I have stuck around and tried to coach these players and DM or was I right to bail? Ps. Later ran into this dm at a party and he told me some very grim details from a game he’s running so I think I dodged a bullet.

Gadari Rammpal

To the noble and pious Justices and whatever positive or negative term we are referring to the bailiff. May I present the case of scheming Old Man Kobold (me) Vs the Metagaming Noble Fighter. This is a new campaign over Discord with no cameras, with old friends who I have played many ttrpgs with. I as a player prefer to scheme and plan, Everyone knows this, My character is a disreputable old Kobold Wizard who met the party recently when it was created, and my friend's character is a straight edge Noble dwarven fighter, (With a loose barbarian and a lawful cleric making the rest of the party). Knowing the positions of the party and how different alignments clashing can destroy the fun, I messaged everyone about my plan of casting "Distort Value" on a shield we are selling and getting more for it, to make sure everyone was ok with it, nobody raised anything after talking about it, and I mentioned I would do it out of eyesight alone. Thumbs up from everyone that talked including the fighter. during the session, I told the party I wanted to sell the shield alone as I know a guy implying my plan, and got a lot of pushback about doing things together as a party from the Fighter, after relenting to let me sell it alone, I said "I go back to the room and begin casting Distort Value", to which the fighter immediately says "I follow them" and the DM double checks they want to and we jump into the scene of them watching me cast a spell and acting disgusted about it. the fighter refused to take any of the money and the cleric followed their lead without knowing anything After the session, I raised the situation with the fighter saying they knew what I wanted to do, It felt shitty when they pushed so hard against it and that it could lead to more situations where lawful party members don't allow anything, they replied that their character didn't know, and of course the fighter would follow the Kobold back into their room as they don't trust them, I argued that they knew what I wanted and just were desperate for the whole party to have constant interactions because of their own past ttrpg trauma. As it stands we agreed that it's blown out of proportion. Am I right to be upset about this situation, when I tried to talk to the other players beforehand about the situation and then that info was used against Old Man Kobold. Extra info: Picture of Old Man Kobold: https://imgur.com/a/WI7nIR7 Old man Kobold is at least 226 years old last time he remembered The trauma: We were in a party with a player who would check out if the scene didn't involve them and was a general problem

james_in_space

Hi Justices! Hello, Jake. So I'm a first-time DM for a crew of improvisers who've never played DnD before. Second session, my players helped save a halfling farmer from an evil scarecrow. The farmer had a loyal mastiff named Fig Newton who fought alongside her, even serving as the halfling's steed. Of course my players fell in love with Fig Newton the mastiff, as I expected. Having cute NPCs is a treat for your players. But then as they were leaving, the party’s sorcerer tried to essentially steal Fig Newton by attempting to lie to the farmer, claiming the adventurers needed the dog to help save the world. She rolled a 23 on Deception, so I allowed it, but I was sure to describe how sad the farewell was, and how Fig Newton kept whining and looking back to the farm as they left. Fig Newton helped the party on their way, and since he’s friendly and his owner had told him to help them, I gave the Animal Handling checks a low DC, so they were no problem for the sorcerer. But since I kept mentioning how despondent the dog seemed, one of my players (not the sorcerer) finally took the hint and ordered Fig Newton to go home. I immediately narrated how, with a delighted "RUFF", the mastiff trotted off back toward the farm. Happy ending, right? But now my sorcerer is pissed at me! She says if I was just going to "ruin the fun" and take the dog away, I should never have allowed her to make the Deception roll at all. Justices, should I have just told her she couldn’t take Fig Newton in the first place?

Dr. Tulkas

I have been running a campaign for about two years due to scheduling hiccups. The players went back to an enemy fort to loot it completely after the left early last time. The over confident players took a short rest in a cavern without watch and were attacked. One player died when the other played didn’t want to let the baddie escape in exchange for it to not kill the downed player. I was able set up the players to “revive” the player with a modified myconid sovereign spore. The player was “mostly dead” and the party had to finish his back story to have warforged “reforged” back to full life. Was I wrong to give them an out from a poor story death? I was concerned with it being too lack luster as we near the end of the campaign and selfishly did not want to throw away the work on his back story. May the honorable judges seal my fate.

Colm Smith

To the honorable supreme crit and the bailiff that's legally obligated to be here, I present to you the case of the Helpful Hippo and the Elderly Elf: I run a spelljammer campaign where one of my players is a giff(hippo person) gunslinger. He and the party recently defeated an elvish spy who had an elven chain shirt. The giff looted the shirt and between sessions decided to give it to an elderly alcoholic elf npc who is a member of their crew. This npc’s entire mechanical purpose is to make drinks for the ship and eventually make potions for the party as well. The problem is the npc has commoner stats, and is no use to the party once a fight breaks out. There are also multiple other members of the party without magical armor, or any armor at all, who often get knocked unconscious in combat because of it. I would just have the elf give the armor to another player, but the giff loves the old guy so much and wants to keep him safe. My question is this: should I have the elf give the armor to another party member even though I know the giff would be mad that he was going unprotected or should I let the situation stay as it is even though the armor won’t see any use?

syfish88

Dear supreme crit, I have a follow up to a case from the Boston live show regarding Oca the half orc paladin artificer with the amazing back story that could be a campaign in of itself. That my friend Mauricio submitted on my behalf. Oca showed up and started acting differently and started using different flavored spells then revealed to us that he had another soul in his body named Lars. This Lars character was actually a Demi god and his paladin side of his character. Lars then tried to convince our whole party to abandon the quest we were set upon by our DM and to go visit his orc village and help him discover why he was “soul bonded” to Oca. My character ,Kleetus a Druid, told him no since none of us had any reason to go to his village and get us back on track to the quest our DM had given us. Which was hunting a werewolf. Lars/Oca then acted sad and continued to follow our party as we hunted down this werewolf. Lars/Oca started to roll wisdom saving throws and if it was below a 15 he would have a headache and do nothing during role play or fights due to his characters head aches. We ended up getting into a fight with the werewolf and Lars/Oca refused to do any damage or help in any way saying his character had too bad of a head ache. I in character as Kleetus eventually asked our DM “can I do a lesser restoration so he can help?” Our DM having no idea what’s going on with Lars/Oca said yes this will get rid of his head aches and he can then fight. After I burn my last spell slot to help Oca in our fight he then rolled a con saving throw that no one asked him to roll and his character passed out. We had two PCs go down in this fight and I had no way to heal because I had wasted my last spell slot to help Oca who was out for the fight. Oca then woke up after the fight having no recollection of Lars and continued like he had helped us with the fight. All the PCs were mad at the player for not helping and being useless during this session. No one has been healing or giving Oca the help action ever since this incident. How do we get this player to stop making the sessions about himself?

Jess D.

I’m sorry you got treated that way, it’s wild your table reacted like that. I would have made the same choice as you here!!!

Chris Hoover

To the highest Supreme Crit Justices and the ignoble yet dashing Bailiff Jake, I present before you the case of the DM Flake, My good friend that brought me into the world of DnD five years ago wants to run a campaign. He’s been mulling it over for months and mentions maybe having an idea for a campaign. Only problems are that he says this all the time and we get invested and it fizzles out after a few sessions. He either decides he didn’t like his idea anymore after we begin or he makes excuses not to play. I think it’s because he lacks any confidence in his DMing, all his npc voices are best described as ‘Incredulous Spanish guy’ and have no range. Nobody has committed to his game because he flakes so much. Recently another player laid out a campaign pitch, created a discord for organizing it, and talk to us about ideas he had. Now my first friend is mad at us all for going with this tangible campaign and not committing to his campaign that never was pitched. I ask, did we do wrong by our first friend by jumping into the campaign of the second member? I humbly await your decision following a spirited discussion.

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

What up sluts. And the artist jake. Today I'm bringing you the case of the "creative" player. A coworker and I are trying to start up a Pathfinder 2e campaign with a few friends and co workers. One co worker in particular sounds very interested but every time we talk classes and background he comes up with terrorist spider inventors, or enslaved circus performers that want to go back for some reason. He never has a reason for the builds aside from they sound fun. He also keeps planning to try fucking with another party that exists in the same world via suicide bombing their kingdom eventually. Keep in mind we haven't started yet. So I ask you kind sluts, not Jake. We want to play with him but don't want to do an evil campaign. Any advice would help. Ps it's a good pirate themed campaign so nothing evil please. Thank you sluts

Jacob Stringer

Hi there esteemed justices and the admirably mediocre bailiff Jake. I've been trying to get a campaign going but the players I intend on having in the campaign insist I MUST have enough things written up to appease multiple 3-4 hour long play sessions before we even begin. I stated that I prefer to have where we'll begin and the early environment established and go from there. This is the sole role reason we haven't began playing, am I wrong to not delve ever deeper in preparation; or should the players cut me some slack and let me keep the story more open allowing the decisions they make to not totally derail the things I've written.

J D

Definitely need a follow up on the grim details

Bubba in the Bay

To the capriciously correct judges and the jarringly jinxed Jake, I submit my case of the voice test. In my first long campaign I played a Tabaxi Rogue/Wizard with a French accent. The campaign was made of people I met online playing D&D and everyone was so open to playing I thought I found my chance to try a French accent for my character. I had just finished binging “Emily in Paris”, and was ready to try a French accent myself. I think I did a pretty good with saying English words in a French accent and everyone seemed to enjoy it during session 0. One of the other players even works with some French employees and mentioned I sound just like they speak; needless to say I was feeling emboldened. During the first few games however a few of the other players would constantly ask me to clarify what I was saying because they couldn’t understand. This would slow the action down as the DM was one of the people asking for clarification. I tried different variations of the French accent speaking higher and slower, hoping I would find an version that everyone could understand but there was always at least one person who needed clarification. The game ended up being cancelled all together due to infighting but I still want to know, was it ok of me to use my compatriots as testing grounds for perfecting my French accent? I prostrate myself before the court.

FregLover

What? I can't understand what you're saying

Thunderous Turtle

To the esteemed, wind tussled hair with the sounds of stirring music upon view Judges. Also to the baliff who knows exactly how he should be treated in this moment. To be brief I give you the homebrewed autostunning Bulette. (Hold for potential outrage). I play a level 6 Yuan Ti - Nature cleric in a party of 6. Our dm was very generous on character generation (several rare magic items, bonus feat) so we were relatively buffed for context and have had some recent dm whomping battles - one encounter a pt one hit/one rounded a hag by stealing her broom and impaling her on a bone tree. This encounter we entered this man's mysterious hole and encounted 2 large modified/electric Bulettes. We made a plan including having a fly spell on myself and fearing one so we could party v 1 them. During which they used an action that created an electric stomp (30 ft stomp) with a DC 15 dex (i believe) check that rendered you stunned + damage. Thing is, next round the creature could automatically do it again and if you were stunned you automatically failed. This ended with one beast dead and the majority bar 2 of the party in a perpetual stun lock while myselt the cleric and the bard tried to get it down and keep the party up. Fortunately in the end the creature fled, the party healed and the vamperous party member got knocked out before attacking us in a frenzy. I feel the autostun did not sit well with the fighters of the team, nor me. Was the DM wrong to have an autostun feature or was our previous whomping, bonused up characters and eventual survival justifiable of them. PS everyone was happier next session with no deaths and we found baby bulettes which me and the ranger wish to raise much to the dm chagrine (I feel the autostun ability may not transfer to the babies)

Michael Coggins

I have a new one! This happened only week ago. Dear Justices and either despicable or enchanting bailiff Jack. I just started a new campaign with some friends, we're starting at 20 but the DM is homebrewing stuff that makes progression post 20 possible. We are essentially invited from our own world and reborn into this new dimension, to save it from a superbeing that eats dimensions for fun, and if left unchecked will make it to our home worlds eventually. It seems really interesting, I get to play a character I've long wanted to play, a Battle Smith Artificer. Robot pets, powerful self created magic tech. It's like all my favourite parts of FF6, but in DND! The first session, it goes very wrong... One of the members, we'll name Chad(not real name), is an old DM of mine, who has always been very much fixated on a character that is an old PC of his, that he inserts into his homebrew worlds as basically the most powerful entity that has ever or will ever exist. She's entirely mary sue. She is a wizard but also a scientist with lightsabers and flying spaceships (even though in the campaign I first met her, it was literally a world of crossbows and some very rare and limited artificer metallurgy) also she has cleric spells too. Well, she's who Chad is playing in this level 20 campaign. The first fight we had, bear in mind we are tasked with saving this world and it's people... Chad decides to cast meteor swarm in the center of the first city we are sent to, and kills literally 300+ innocent bystanders while he's trying to break into a bank to steal money to help get our journey started. We had learned information that the nobility, royalty and trade elites are all extremely corrupt and are abusing and stealing from the poor people and letting them starve. I have no problem with us robbing a bank and helping the poor, but... meteor swarm killing hundreds of innocents just absolutely ruined it for me. I straight told the DM and RPed in group, that I would never work with a such a callous psychopathic murderer and left. I straight retired my character from the campaign because he literally would never work with someone that unhinged. Am I in the wrong? I feel guilty because I've put extra work and stress on the DM but... if my character simply would never trust or work with someone who uses those kinds of methods, I feel it's justified enough. Also he let her play that PC, even though he has seen how Chad plays and uses and obsesses over this PC. Thanks as always, you guys are wonderful. (even the Bailiff, let's be real!)

Dippity_Dip

To the justices and the incredible, incomparable, irreparable bailiff Jake : the case of the righty-tighty Bloodhunter. A while ago I had joined as a new player in my friends’ Strahd campaign, playing as a synthesizer wielding bard; also in the party was my friend playing a very serious, very edgy Bloodhunter. Our second encounter was rescuing a fellow party member from the clutches of a cult - my solution was to whip out my synth to create a distraction, and the rest of the party got super into it. We played an actual 80s bop at the table and jammed, destroying the cult in game with the power of Wham! The Bloodhunter, however, refused to take part despite our attempts to include him and he mocked our characters before leaving the party to explore some dark woods alone. When the session ended, he was genuinely mad at us in real life for how we handled the combat because he thought it was ridiculous (and actually left early out of sheer anger). My question is: should we have been more catering to his broody needs, or should he have loosened up just a bit?

raptorsoup

I know I'm no member of the supreme crit, but if you want another player to have the armor I would have the elf himself bring it up, pondering that surely those of the team who are out in the thick of it would have better use.

raptorsoup

screw em, no one is forcing them to play so why should they enforce restrictions on your preparation style?

William beachus

To the beautiful and intelligent justices and the lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly bailiff Joe: The case of the paladin and the innocent bystander. This was my first time playing D&D 5e with a group of friends who were more experienced years ago when I was in college. Our party had just returned from a mysterious island we were had fought some ghost and cultists. My Character a paladin named Sven was walking down the street and was rudely shoulder checked by a passer by, when Sven went to confront who the passer by was it was a man wearing a black robe with a large skull on it. The dm told me that the man looks at me and says “fuck your god” and spits on my characters boots. Being my first time playing 5e I thought violence was the proper respons so I drew steel against this clear cultist. I rolled a nat 1, laughs were all had around the table by myself the rest of the party and the DM, one of the players joking asks if I hit an innocent bystander and the DM proceeds to narrate how on my nat 1 I swing wide and stab a poor innocent grandpa who was on his way to see his grandchildren. He died because he had 1 hp and Sven was immediately tackled and taken to prison by the guards. So what was just a joke turned into a very real moment where I killed some poor grandpa and lost my paladin Sven to the prison system. I am asking today does this seem fair that a joke turned into me loosing my character and having to roll a new one for the campaign? Or was a nat1 against a cultist in the street justified to cause harm to innocents, Sven the paladin is at your mercy.

Mary Colligan

To the high judges and low bailiff, I present the case of the questionable murder hobos. My party and I were raised from the dead with no memory of our death in our campaign. We were traveling along a road and came upon The Inquisition, questioning a group of scared looking people that were surrounded by the rekilled undead. An investigation check showed me that they were worshipers of a death god, but likely not the ones that had caused these things to rise. My Satyr Paladin was able to convince the Inquisitors to let me question the leader of the religious group with our charismatic bard. The leader of the religious group had been saying things like, "You don't need to worry about us, we won't BE captured" and "We have our ways out of this situation." Wanting to thwart the a-hole and oftentimes violent Inquisitors I went back and tried to persuade them to let the innocent people go but rolled a Nat 1 on my persuasion check, as did my Bard companion (yes, that's TWO Nat 1s). In a look to the DM, I said, "I guess I start swinging?" I killed the leader of the Inquisition in one turn at which point the leader of the religious group (and my DM) were yelling, "Why'd you kill them?! They're just scared of the undead! They're only trying to protect the innocent!" My bard and I felt awful! We're not murder hobos! I follow the light! Was my DM being too vague when he said things like, "We have our own ways out of this situation," and "We won't BE captured," or were my bard friend and I straight up murder hobos in this situation? By the way, when the DM started freaking out that we'd murdered the "scared and innocent Inquisitor," I brought him up with Lay on Hands and sent him and his party on their way.

Jarred Hahn

Should’ve just let her have the dog…

Jules B.

Just that one of the players from this case was constantly trying to assault npcs. This was presented to me as a hilarious gag. I don’t see him at parties anymore.

Vincent G

Hi! Immaculate Justices (in particular Emily Axford) and deplorable bailiff Jake. Unless we like him today. This question is about patreon, humor, and performance art so it might not be relevant to Dnd court. But it is a question I have for you. I want to start a patreon and do a piece of performance art where I “fight” Elon Musk. The plan is to suspend myself and several of my hot friends to a crane and just sort of yell stuff demanding that he save us until he shows up. There will be lasers and fire and stuff, very theatrical. Then I want to actually just befriend him because I think he might be kind of a neurodivergent weirdo who took on too much and needs to take a step back. So in a way it is kind of a dnd fight LOL. My DM (boyfriend) thinks I can’t challenge Elon Musk to a Fight on patreon because I might get censored. I think since its in a video and I am making a joke maybe I can? I don’t know? I in particular really want to hear Emily’s take on this as a woman but all of your feedback is important to me. Uh my insta is thadea_decora and my facebook is Thadea Decora

Cristian

If finger of death kills its target, they're raised as a zombie. Your player was just knocked out. The instakill mechanic is if you reach your maximum health in negative numbers.

Everest

Dear Dice Christ anointed, it’s me, the tired dm. I shed blood- by removing a player from an online game. There were many reasons it was done, and for them I do not seek forgiveness as maintaining a safe play environment is essential. However, this player, whenever not rolling digitally, would report his rolls for anything that made his character look cool or powerful as egregiously high. Then when we played a Star Trek rpg where lower numbers were better, all the nat 1’s, 3’s and 4’s came out. I do believe your hand can influence the dice, and perhaps he could have rolled incredibly well for one or two games, but I began tracking his rolls when my friend dmed and there is no world in which the proportion of self serving rolls are that high/low depending on which is better for the game style. Now for the sun, out of a desire to avoid dealing with him playing offended, I did not bring up the dice rolls as part of the reason he was being removed. Dice christ, please forgive me for letting this player walk away thinking it wasn’t obvious to everyone who dmed a session that he was sinning in your name. I feel that as the creator of the dnd group it was my duty to bring him to the light, however dealing with this person as long as I did was it’s own form of punishment and made the sessions feel like work. Was I wrong to not point out to him that he’d lost both dms trust when not rolling digitally? I await any penance assigned - An Adverse to Player Aggression DM.